


Paper Boats

by Kt_fairy



Series: let the river rush in [16]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Boys Being Boys, Coming of Age, Gen, Gender Identity, Internalized Homophobia, James Fitzjames in a Dress, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Canon, Rated M for later Chapters, Sexual Content, Tags will update with chapters, Tenderness, The End, a literal voyage of self discovery, baby jfj, fear and loathing in the arctic, gay awakening thanks to the sea, the horror of being perceived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26771992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kt_fairy/pseuds/Kt_fairy
Summary: James did not feel quite like himself, dressed up like a sailor. And, strangely, feeling unlike himself was rather satisfying.He supposed it was all the change going on. In a few days he would step onto thePyramusand begin his life at sea, in the hope it was vast and varied enough that it contained a place where someone like him might be able to be honest about themselves, and still live a good life.OrJames Fitzjames goes to sea, finds a place for himself, then finds a way tobehimself.Fic written; posting as I edit.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: let the river rush in [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1458220
Comments: 62
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a 5+1 fic that got very, very out of hand because I am very, very self indulgent when it comes to my boy JFJ.
> 
> Thank you, as always, to MsKingBean for cheerleading, editing, effort, sage words of wisdom, and saying "You know, this can be done in chapters?"
> 
> Tags will update as chapters go up. And in case you're wondering - Francis turns up in chapter three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream._  
>  _In big black letters I write my name on them and the name of the village where I live._  
>  _I hope that someone in some strange land will find them and know who I am._  
>  -Paper Boats, Rabinranath Tagore 

####  _**\- 1822**_

####  _A Prologue;_

The soft spring grass slipped under James’ feet, causing him to almost stumble over his own legs, but the quick application of a flailing arm kept him upright and on course as he raced up the lawn. 

He threw a wave to the gardeners who were pondering the ivy covering the walls of Rose Hill, the men calling out “ _good morning, Master James_ ” and “ _where are you off to then?_ ” as he passed.

“Urgent business,” James replied, skipping slightly in order to slow himself down as he came up to the French windows that were flung open to the bright, flower lined patio.

He paused, letting his breathing calm while he wiped the dust and dew covering his shoes onto the legs of his green skeleton suit, making sure he was presentable. Auntie and uncle would not mind, but James would hate to be untidy before them, lest he appear ungrateful for their many kindnesses. 

Auntie and uncle had seated themselves to face the open windows, and were already looking his way when James stepped into the room. His uncle’s foot paused in tapping out a tune on the air, book resting on his crossed legs, and his aunt’s pen was poised on the edge of the inkwell, the flowers on her linen dress looking so very pretty against the plain writing desk. 

“Such a rush, my dear,” she smiled. “Might I enquire as to what has caused it?”

“Auntie, I am in need of a petticoat,” James pronounced. 

Uncle’s eyebrows raised over his glasses, and he closed his book as he sat forward in his chair. “A petticoat, my boy?”

James nodded, “yes uncle.”

He looked to auntie, who had set down her pen, then back to James. “This instant? Are you and Will not playing with the Boyd children?”

“Yes uncle. We were playing Knights, and Bob Boyd said that Will was to be the princess ‘cause -”

“Because,” auntie corrected gently, tucking her shawl more securely about her shoulders.

“- because Will is youngest, and Will is most unhappy about this,” James said gravely, tucking his hair behind his ear. “So I said that as I am his brother I shall be the princess instead, and I will wear a fine gown and will vanquish all the dragons by my _self_! Which is why I need a petticoat, please auntie.”

“Ah. Good lad, minding your duty to your brother,” uncle said, turning to nod in approval to auntie, whose expressive mouth was trying not to smile. “Do you mean to wear it over your clothes?”

“Of course, uncle. It is for the effect.”

“For the effect,” he agreed sagely, a twinkle in his pale eyes. “Quite right.”

“Well,” auntie sighed, setting a paperweight upon her half written letter as she stood. “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Is it not dear Jamie?”

James agreed with a solemn nod, “worth doing right.”

Auntie held her hand out to him, the sun catching on the Irish heart ring she wore, and James hurried over the polished floor to clasp her cool fingers.

“Then let us go,” she said softly, “and search for something fit for killing dragons in.” 

********

####  _**\- 1825**_

“But why do you want to go?” Will huffed. “What’s so good about the dratted sea?”

James tucked his feet under his chair, heart sinking when he looked up and caught the wetness in Will’s blue eyes. He was standing beside James at the low table in their cluttered, blanket strewn bedroom, arms crossed over his narrow chest while pouting down at the letter James was writing. 

“I - “ James began, thinking of how there was always a puzzled pause whenever auntie introduced him - taller, darker, more angular than the Coninghams - as her son. Of how he always heard Anna, the nanny, babbling a Portuguese, papist prayer for his mother’s soul on the day before his birthday. Thinking of that letter he had seen on uncle’s desk, written in a hand he did not know, that asked after ‘the boy’.

He was well cared for and well loved, and lucky to be so. Yet he was not a Coningham, nothing could make him so, and the Gambier's had ensured James would never truly fit anywhere when they burdened him with a name that all but declared the state of his birth. For the world judged you first by your family, even at twelve James knew this, and as he grew his lack of one would become more and more of a burden. Closing doors and narrowing his horizons. 

And when his cousin Captain Gambier - to whom James was now writing- had visited six months ago, he had described life at sea as nothing but horizons.

“It shall be an adventure,” James shrugged, then widened his eyes like he always did when telling Will a story. “I shall go to sea, and make my fortune. And have a fine uniform, and a sword, and then I shall take you on my ship and go wherever you please.”

“To the Indies!” Will gasped, his sulk forgotten. “To see a monkey?”

“A whole tree of them,” James promised, guilt gnawing at his stomach when Will squirmed in delight. 

* ***** *

James plucked at the blue striped collar set over his shoulders, kicking one leg out and then the other; fascinated by the bell-like bottoms to the trousers of his white sailor suit.

No, that was incorrect. What he wore was called a ‘Naval Rig’, according to Captain Gambier.

They had only met three or four before James had decided to go to sea, the captain kind enough to have a care for James’ welfare. He was a pious man, but not tiresome with it, more full of christian charity than sermons; and James, young but hardly naïve, could not help but wonder if that was the reason why he had agreed to take the Portuguese bastard of his wayward cousin on to his ship.

It was uncharitable of James to think so, for the captain and his wife had both been very generous and kind to him. They had given James a room in their Portsmouth house while waiting for the _Pyramus_ to receive orders; the building more narrow and the city far more noisy than James was used to. The unfamiliarity only worsening his pangs of homesickness for Rose Hill and the pastoral peace of Hertfordshire, which felt half the world away. And Mrs Gambier had outfitted James in the crisp white Volunteers uniform he was currently wearing. Turning this way and that before the tarnished looking glass in his neat room to see if he looked smart, and wishing Will was there to tell him he looked ridiculous. 

James did not feel quite like himself, dressed up like a sailor. And, strangely, feeling unlike himself was rather satisfying. 

James supposed it was all the change going on. In a few days he would step onto the _Pyramus_ and begin his life at sea, in the hope it was vast and varied enough that it contained a place where someone like him might be able to be honest about themselves, and still live a good life.

* ***** *

A great cheer went up, and James peered out of the door of the captain's cabin, eyeing the sailors as they lumbered around on the deck, hanging pieces of Barbadian greenery from the rigging.

The last celebration aboard _Pyramus_ had been when they passed over the equator; and James - who had crossed the line for the first time - had been unceremoniously dumped backwards into a barrel of cold seawater. So he did not quite trust that his first Christmas at sea would not promise a similar treatment, only with the added indignity of his being dressed as an approximation of a woman.

All of the jolly Christmas traditions of home - the pinning up of evergreen boughs, the blessings of tools and the guns, the fine feasts the captain had paid for, and the topsy-turvy fun of Twelfth-night - were crammed into one day when at sea. Or at least under captain Gambier, who was stern, yet fair, and of good enough humour to allow his men a day of merriment under the hot Caribbean sun, so far from the snowy hills and frozen ponds of England. 

James shook himself from the thought of home, lest he start to become melancholy, and turned back into the over bright captain’s cabin. He crossed the checked floor, glancing over at the assortment of officers sitting around the table drinking their coffee, before dropping onto the bench below the stern windows.

The dog watches had been given over to a Twelfth-night sort of production (although sorely lacking in a twelfth cake, which did aggrieve James so); the officers playing at being petty officers - captain Gambier borrowing the boatswains whistle, hat, and coat, which was far too long and wide and was causing Dr Thomson much amusement - while the youngest in the crew got to act as captain for an hour or so. 

James had been glad to match one of ship’s rated Boys in age, or rather the lack of it. He had intended to graciously step aside, not wishing for the attention as he was not yet comfortable with the crew’s brand of humour - rough but not unkind, finding teasing and self-deprecation amusing in that peculiar English way that only left James feeling wrong footed. However, it had been decided that as he held rank as a Volunteer he would be given the role of a captain’s wife, to allow the Boy to be of greater rank than he. 

Which was why he was currently got up in a linen smock which had been turned into a semblance of dress by a couple of ABs. And James _hated_ it. 

It was fine sewing, he would not deny that, but it felt odd about his legs, constricting at his waist, and not at all like clothes! He could hardly even walk like himself, and had come over so hot and strange after taking a look at this uncanny version of himself in the captain’s looking glass that he dare not catch his reflection again.

Abel Davidson, the ship’s boy who was always following the carpenter about, had been very amused upon seeing James. He had put his hands to his dark face and laughed uproariously, until James snapped, “oh be quiet _husband_ ,” at him. The stunned silence that followed causing captain Gambier to hide a smile in his coffee cup. 

Davidson was sitting on the far end of the bench now, watching the officers curiously while his feet fidgeted against the floor; the noise just beginning to annoy James when the Boy stood. He approached James, cautious of the glare sent his way, and perched on the bench beside him, dark brown hands pressed between the knees of his immaculate blue trousers. He had epaulettes made of rope on his shoulders, and a midshipman's dagger standing in for the sword at his hip, and James felt horribly jealous. 

“I crossed the line year last, Plymouth to Madagas,” Davidson said suddenly, his Devon accent thick. “On _Antelope_ they smeared all in paint a’fore dunking ‘em. I was saved that on account a bein’ dark enough te start with - but the water weren’t half cold.”

“I should have hated to be smeared in paint,” James mumbled, trying to work out if that would be worse than being jokingly bowed to by the charming Mr John Barrow junior, the midshipman whose father was secretary of the Admiralty. 

“I got a tattoo though.”

James perked up at once. “A tattoo? Did it hurt dreadfully?”

“Aye,” Davidson said proudly. “You want to see it, Mr Fitzjames?”

“Oh yes!” James gasped, clutching his hands in his lap as the boy pulled his arm from his jacket, rolling up his sleeve to reveal the blue lines of King Neptune spanning the spare muscle on his upper arm.

“Foretopman did it fer me.”

James made a noise of wonder, forgetting his awkward discomfort as he leant in close enough to smell the tobacco and tar on the other boy’s shirt, taking a good look at the dancing waves and strong manner of the sea god. 

“It’s awfully good.”

“Ain’t he fierce lookin’.”

“Very much so,” James agreed, smiling. 

Abel preened, a crooked smile lighting up his whole countenance. “Want to touch it?”

James wiped his hands on his skirt before laying a fingertip on Neptune’s crown, following the shape of it over the boy’s warm skin. “I thought it would be raised.”

“Raised?”

“Bumps,” James explained, tracing the god’s scowling face. “Bumpy, for each jab of ink.”

“Oh,” Abel peered down at his arm. “No.”

The boy looked up suddenly, over to the other side of the cabin, and James remembered that they were not alone. He took his hand back and straightened as he glanced over towards the captain, finding him watching on in that kind way of his, even appearing somewhat amused. Which did not prevent James’ stomach twisting up as if he had been doing something wrong.

“It is a very fine tattoo,” James nodded politely as Abel rolled his sleeve down, silence falling between them as the other boy put himself to rights.

“I’m sorry for laughing earlier,” Abel said, drawing Jame’s attention back to him. “I shouldn’t ’ave”

“It’s quite alright,” James nodded, shaking out his skirt so it fell tidily over his legs, not quite sure why he cared if his costume was neat or not. "I would laugh at myself too, most likely.”

* ***** *

####  _**\- 1826** _

He was not afraid, despite how his heart was beating. Not of the salt spray kicking up into his face, nor the wind catching his clothes, nor the waters so far below, being churned up into frothing waves by the fast moving ship. 

It was only sensible to grip tightly onto a rope when one was leaning right out over the gunwale. Even though the sailors were doing so with abandon, their only caution being to hold their hats onto their heads, which James was also doing - for he should hate the fuss and embarrassment of needing to be found a new hat. But otherwise they were chatting and smoking or --

Abel, who had been full of delight when he hurried to fetch James to the bow, leaned so far forward over the gunwale that his feet left the deck, and James let go of the rope to grasp on to him, heart in his throat.

“Don’t worry about that!” Abel called over the wind, as if his falling in were an impossibility - bold as only a British sailor could be. He whooped when one of the dolphins dancing alongside their bow leapt gracefully from the waves, giving its tail a kick as if it knew what merriment it would cause in its audience, and James could not help his glee.

Wonder ate quickly at fear, especially in children who wanted more than anything not to be afraid. Soon James was clinging to nothing but his hat, tanned hand hanging over the gunwale to catch the wind and the water and _Pyramus’_ great forward motion, toes just touching the deck.

* ***** *

“Mr Fitzjames,” Captain Gambier called, and James hopped up the ladder two steps at a time to stand with one foot on the quarterdeck, keeping out of the way of the men scrambling up the rat lines for the mizzen mast.

“Aye sir,” he shouted above the wind. 

“Compliments to Lieutenant Galindo and ask him to bring in the yard-arms.”

“Bring in the yards, aye sir” James repeated, dropping down the ladder and dodging AB’s and bellowing mates as he rushed forward. 

A great gale had been whipped up by the mercurial Atlantic, shaking the sails and causing the loose ropes to whip about dangerously. Topmen were aloft shortening sails, and deckhands were actually battening down hatches; which would have delighted James if he were not trying to keep his footing as the ship pitched along with the unsteady sea. 

He was not alarmed; it might have been more sensible to be so, but James had quickly learnt that common sense had its place at sea. The ocean was fickle and terrifying, disappearing ships without a trace, and although superstition dictated that being able to swim was tempting the ocean to drown you, James thought he was rather tempting fate by _not_ being able to swim.

It took him two goes at getting the lieutenant’s attention, his voice choosing this moment to crack embarrassingly. “Lieutenant Galindo _sir!”_

“What is it?” he barked, face flushed with the chill wind and from shouting up to the topmen reefing the sails.

James relayed his message, not flinching when a deck gun slipped, pulling dangerously at the ropes bracing it to the gunwale.

The lieutenant looked him over as a mighty gust raged over the deck, almost causing James to stagger, but he kept his feet under him. “Good lad,” Lieutenant Galindo said, “you’re a sailor now,” he smiled at James as if the whole deck were not a flurry of activity, the image of a cool and collected British officer, and James felt calmer for it. “Compliments to the captain, I shall see it done.”

“Sir,” James nodded, trying not to blush, and turned to dash back along the deck.

He took up his post below the quarterdeck after giving his message to the captain, watching Abel rush around with the carpenters mate. His eyes were bright with excitement when he caught James’ gaze, and he was unable to keep a smile off his face when Abel pointed at the rippling sails and shouted joyfully,“bit windy, ain’t it?”

“Way you’re smiling, lad,” a grizzled, sun bleached AB said to him, pointing to his tobacco stained front teeth that were no more even than James', “the wind won't straighten those.”

“It might take the rest of your hair, though,” James shot back, all youthful arrogance. Already aware that the odd imperfection and coltish tendency of his limbs did not detract from his burgeoning handsomeness.

The AB laughed, as did his mates, and James watched them take hold of a rope with their great, rough hands and heave with all the power in their limbs.

* ***** *

####  _**-1827** _

James' shoulders ached as he waded out of the river, taking care not to slip on the silted floor as the sparkling, cool waters tried to drag his legs back with every step.

“Well done, Fitzjames,” Mr Nyers, the mate, called from his spot in the shallows, trousers rolled up to his knees and straw hat pulled down over his fair hair to shield his eyes from the glare of the Portuguese sun. “What was that, eight widths of the river? Have you swimming the Hellespont in no time, eh?”

“There and back again,” James smiled, hands on his hips and cold toes curling into warm sandy shore. “Although I may need a lesson or two more to beat Byron’s record.”

“That’s the spirit,” Nyers laughed, turning back to the gaggle of young men from _Pyramus_ and the flagship, _HMS Sybille_ , both ships anchored in Lisbon harbour, who were splashing about more than anything; content to mess around rather than applying themselves to learning to swim like James had.

It was good to move about somewhere other than the same forty-seven yards of _Pyramus’_ decks. James spent a deal of his time not on watch either winning at dice against bored midshipmen, or crouching down in a quiet corner with the other Volunteers, listing the places they hoped to sail to one day. Or with Abel, who had grown in muscle where James had grown in height; James either helping him with his letters, or Abel helping James practice his knots, laughing whenever their fingers tangled together.

James picked his way over to where their clothes were being guarded by a dozing petty officer from _Sybille,_ plucking a neatly folded towel from the top of the stack to rub water from his hair. His bare skin began to prickle as it warmed in the heat of the day, and James sighed in contentment as he pulled the sheet from his head; only to find the petty officer looking him over, head cocked insolently, and with far too much intent in his brazen green eyes. 

James was startled; not knowing whether to preen, to be flattered that he was being so looked at, or to be alarmed by it. Either way, he sent the man a scowl, wrapping the sheet around his nakedness as he strode away to sit on a patch of long grass at the curve of the river, looking up at the distant shape of the castle set on it’s hill above Lisbon.

He kept the sheet tucked safely about him as he stretched his legs out, yawning widely and tipping his face towards the sun so the dark behind his eyelids would glow orange. James sat in perfect stillness, feeling the warm breeze shift through his rapidly drying hair, and enjoyed the scent of the cypress trees and pines that populated the banks of the Tagus; a pleasant change from the acrid smell of salt and tar aboard ship. 

James was neither all alone nor bathed in gentle silence. There was still the splashing and laughter of the swimming lesson in progress, and he could just make out the chatter of the local women seeing to their laundry just upstream from him.

He tilted his head towards them, catching the gist of their conversations over the slaps and splats of wet cloth; a daughter was getting married to another’s brother, cakes were needed for a festival in the next village, and the price of vegetables had risen because of those heathen protestant English buying it all for their ships sitting in port. 

There was no way they could know that James understood them, so he turned his attention away as he did not wish to pry, looking downstream towards the sound of others leaving the water. He found that the petty officer was watching him still, and the flash of warmth that went through James was not wholly annoyance. He stopped himself from turning away and blushing like a virtuous maid, instead looking right back at the man until something like surprise showed on his pink face, and he looked quickly away.

_Quite right_ , James thought to himself, flicking his eyes over to Barrow who was standing on a rock in the river. He waved merrily and James waved back at the midshipman, laughing when he made a show of flopping gracelessly into the river. 

A flurry of Portuguese burst out from behind him, making James jump, and he glanced over his shoulder when it quickly turned into laughter. 

That he was sitting between the two parts of himself was not lost on James; English and Portuguese, his family and his birth. The life he had chosen to build for himself, and the truth he could never acknowledge. Sometimes it all become such a tangle in his chest that it felt as if it might strangle him. Leaving him wishing he could just be one thing, rather than all these scraps that he had gathered up with his ambition in an attempt to _be_ someone. 

But not in this moment; all that was all the concern of Volunteer First Class Fitzjames. And right now, sat on the dry earth with the sun on his skin and uniform left half forgotten at the riverside, James did not very much feel like him at all. 

* ***** *

####  _**\- 1828**_

There was a great churning of feelings in James’ chest as he looked up at the dark, sloping beams of the ceiling. He was laid out on a bed - which was a luxury all in itself after two years folding his legs into a hammock, no matter how lumpy the mattress - aware of his own breathing, and the gentle warmth of the body beside him. 

After two years at sea _Pyramus_ had returned to home port to be paid off, racing ahead of a storm that followed them around the jut of Brittany and up the channel, only to wheel off along England’s south coast and leave Plymouth be. 

He felt a pleasant relief to be back in England, although it was tinged in bitterness also - for as excited as James was to see Will and his aunt and uncle once more, he had become very low on having to say farewell to his friends. To Abel, mostly. For once they had been paid, and James’ sea chest stored with the naval agent, their lives and their mismatched ranks would take them in directions where they could no longer be friends. They had shaken hands as men, wished one another fine sailing and fair winds, and parted ways on deck.

James had not planned to visit any of the inn’s that lined the harbour; his only intention after receiving his pay had been to travel directly home. But others had carousing on their mind, and Mr Barrow had hooked his arm around James’ neck, and proclaimed that they could not let him go without buying him a drink. The good cheer from the mids, as well as their desire for James’ company, had ended up as the prevailing wind, blowing James two streets back from the sprawling dockside taverns to a tidier, cleaner inn that obviously catered for officers.

The black strap had flowed, bets were made and lost, and James had not let the thick smoke of the others’ cigars prevent him from having a fine time. He was aware of members of their company going upstairs with the Delilah’s who strolled saucily between the tables, and knew why the young men received cheers and ribbing on their return, but gave it little thought. He was far too busy entertaining his shipmates with silly stories, or making them bemoan his skill at dice, all while soaking up the friendly attention.

Which was how he had ended up here, James supposed. Someone had called, “I say, I think Fitzjames is shy!” and James was so eager to fit in amongst the other young men that he had let Barrow whisk him upstairs. Going easily when he was pushed into this dimly lit room with a pretty, round faced lady, her pink cheeks framed by a cascade of dark blonde curls. 

“Now Fitzjames, there's no need to be shy with Pol,” Barrow had grinned, pressing a few bright coins into her pale hand. “She’ll make sure you get to go home as both a sailor _and_ as a man.”

James was not _shy_ of women, in fact he got on with them perfectly well. He had simply never wished to engage a lady in anything more than conversation. But, James had thought when Pol slowly placed his hand inside her bodice, letting him touch the pleasantly warm skin of her chest while telling him that they would, " _go on as you like_ ", maybe he only needed to be towed out of the doldrums.

James had enjoyed the feel of her cotton dress and her silk soft hair that smelt of rosemary, and her sweet laughter when he got lost in all her lemon scented petticoats. But it had not been enough, not even when she had wrapped her plump legs around him, all her lovely hair spread out over the faded pillow. 

And now he was laying here, feeling uncomfortable and more than a little embarrassed. Worrying about his lack of enthusiasm when others his age were so eager for female company, and worried - as always - about the masculine direction his thoughts took when he fumbled with himself in his hammock of a morning. 

"Your heart weren't in that, was it love?" Pol interrupted his thoughts, and James would have smiled at the concise observation if he were not suffering the mortification of it being said aloud.

"I am sorry."

"Oh now," she said kindly, huffing as she pushed herself up to lean against the headboard, neatening her skirts over her legs. "No need fer that."

"I shouldn't like you to… you're very - uh, fetching, but -"

"I've seen it all, duck", she sighed, pulling a bundle of fabric and thread into her lap. "Now, you sit quietly while I finish darning this stocking, and then you go downstairs and let your friends think what they will."

James sat up, running his fingers through his hair to neaten it as he watched her clever stitches - homesickness swelling in his chest at the thought of Anna, his old nanny, mending all sorts while telling him and Will tales from exotic lands. 

"You're being very decent about all this. Thank you."

"I've been paid, duck. No skin off my nose," she shrugged, shooting him a raised eyebrow. "S'not often that the gentleman in my bed calls me _fetchin’,_ neither."

* ***** *

“Fitz.”

“Hmm?” James glanced over at Will, pausing in his peeling of the precious orange they had been given to share.

Will, always a thoughtful boy even in his moments of manic activity, did not speak right away. He was looking out through the bright, rustling leaves of the oak tree they were perched in, the smoking chimney of Rose Hill just visible over the woods about them. 

"Are we so very dull and small to you now?"

"What? No. Of course not."

"Only you have been around the world. I'd check your letters against the globe to see," Will sighed, swinging his feet in the empty space beneath their branch. "And the only new thing I have seen these past two years is Eton."

"Nothing-" James frowned, looking down at the shaded ground that was not as far away as it was in his memories. “It is all very interesting to see far off places and do exciting things, but you do miss your home. And those you love,” he smiled when Will knocked his sharp shoulder against his arm. “It can be terribly lonely on a ship full of men and not have one truly know you.”

“Well then," Will nodded with all the surety of a boy of three-and-ten. "It’s a good job that you have come home!”

James smiled, turning back to the orange. He had to agree, although would never admit that he thought he had left the wilds of the uncivilised sea just in time; hoping that settled Englishness and the normality of home would see him right before the odd way he sometimes felt, that he dare not name, could be allowed to put down deep roots and refuse to ever leave him. 

Home felt both smaller and larger than it had ever been - the skies narrow and the genteel rooms vast - parts of it half forgotten memories, and others changed just enough that they seemed both familiar and foreign all at once. 

Which was how James thought he must appear to his family; two years would chart changes in anyone, and he knew very well that he was not the boy who had first gone to sea. But there was something about the way his aunt had looked at him on his return home, holding James at arms length to take a good look at him; a certain kind of surprise edged by concern, that he could not put out of his mind.

“Have - do I seem different?”

“Yes. You look even more like a heron now you’ve grown taller," Will stated, being rather bold for someone not in possession of a half peeled orange. Which James was, and he swiftly applied it to the side of Will's face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next - terrible tweens. Which I hope to have up next Friday!
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing little teenage jfj, and I hope it was as fun to read lool.
> 
> The Links:
> 
> As this is a VERY white show, and it is black history month (in the uk), I thought it would be nice to mention all the black sailors who were in the Royal Navy in this time, via Abel. [ Here](https://dawlishchronicles.com/2019/01/15/black-tars-black-sailors-in-the-royal-navy-in-the-age-of-fighting-sail/) is a good article on 'black tars' that I found quite interesting.
> 
> [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_\(holiday\)) is all you need to know about Twelfth Night, if you are not familiar with the holiday. And [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony#United_Kingdom) is info on the 'Crossing the line' ceremony.
> 
> [This little rascal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/62/Hulsenbeck-detail.jpg/150px-Hulsenbeck-detail.jpg), in his green skeletion suit, is the inspiration for little FJ.
> 
> And here is a pretty cool look at [naval tattoo's](http://thescuttlefish.com/2011/12/a-visual-guide-to-sailor-tattoos-a-scuttlefish-and-bowsprite-creation/).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter rather pings around all over the place (just like FJ did), and covers his disaster 20s. But not all of it, this isn't a blow by blow retelling of his biography...but this chapter is the closest to it :/. With great sweeps of artistic license obvs, this is fic.
> 
> This chapter took a lot of editing and moving stuff around, so if anything is a bit janky you have my apologies.

Being a midshipman aboard a flagship had been a very great disappointment to James.

Gaining the rank of midshipman itself had been exciting, and to be posted aboard the flagship of the great Mediterranean fleet - the fleet _Nelson_ had commanded - had been more than he could have ever hoped for. But, upon arriving in Malta, James had discovered that peacetime was _boring._

Not that he would ever complain, seeing as he had won the posting through some wilful misreading of Admiralty missives by several parties. And it was of course a great honour to serve under any admiral, let alone one as experienced and good humoured as Sir Henry Hotham. But _by_ _God_ was it tedious; nothing to do but sort through bureaucracy, apply oneself to ones lessons, and keep the men from getting drunk while at anchor in Valletta harbour - the city beautiful and old, but after a month he could hardly stand the sight of it.

Fortunately James had a knack for being well liked by both his peers and his commanding officers (nurtured so his bad pun of a name or any oddity in his nature might be overlooked), and for showing off how lively his intelligence was through his grasp of languages and mathematics; and so was deemed 'promising'. 

“Yes, very promising,” Captain Senhouse had declared, his gruff voice giving all he said a sense of great gravity. He rapped his knuckles against the slates of James’ navigational work that were neatly piled on his desk, settling his keen grey eyes on James,“a glittering career lays ahead of you, Mr Fitzjames.”

“Thank you, sir,” James said modesty. A great rush of relief went through him, as he had been subjected to the terror all Mids felt when summoned before a captain (let alone the flag captain of the fleet!), although he was careful not to show any of it.

“And,” the captain pulled a sheet of paper towards him as he picked up a pen, “we must ensure that all you need do is to reach out and take it.”

And so James had been saved from all this tedium by being loaned to a smart little cutter, the _Hind_ , for a year. In order to gain practical experience of seamanship and to learn the temperament of the Mediterranean for his career ahead, and such. Although in the company of his old friend John Boyd, who was already a Mid aboard the ship, it felt far more like a cruise.

(“Experience may be the teacher of all things - so quoth old Caesar,” James had boldly said to the other Midshipmen of the _St Vincent_ before he departed. “But I intend to have a damned fine time of it.”)

They spent that year weaving in and out of the Cyclades islands, avoiding storms and trying to catch the winds; and once James even got to brandish his sword while chasing off some Greek pirates. The countries of the eastern Mediterranean became familiar to him and Boyd as they wandered through the elegant streets of Constantinople or attempted to make watercolours of the faded magnificence of Athens. And they proved that rather hackneyed notion about what young men being stuck together get up to, by becoming familiar with one another's pricks. 

They would grasp and tug at one another with unskilled, rough hands while trekking to ancient ruins or in corners of steaming hamams, sweat slicking the way and making the whole thing headier than it was. Or furtive action in the secret dark damp of the hold; the quick, convenient scratching of an itch while they were away from the company of women. It was down there, hidden behind a barrel of rope, that Mr Kett, the cheery young Mate who always had a question for James about what ancients lived in the places they sailed past, had shown James how to use his mouth; grunting instructions while tangling his blunt fingers in James’ hair, tugging at it to direct his rhythm.

James’ time upon the _Hind_ passed in a youthful rush; all sparkling dark ocean and rocky cliffs, startling ancient cities and not so cautious explorations. His desire for adventure had been exhausted, and a few of his curiosities sated, and so James had allowed himself to like the peace of Malta. He rode its hills and walked through it’s fields, swam in its clear ocean while the other Mids hesitated at the waterline ("Don't worry lads" Boyd would call while splashing about in the shallows, "James doesn't fear anything!"), and led officers around the Roman ruins, trying to read the broken Latin inscriptions which were all that remained of once great men.

He had seen more theatre than he ever would have at home; becoming engrossed in the Italian and French operas while trying to pick through the German. A midshipman with no great personal means could hardly afford as many trips as he made, but certain men were happy to give a ticket to a midshipman loitering by the steps in return for a grope or a suck, or, more often than not, simply some pleasant company. 

All souls wanted someone to listen and to show interest in them, it was not so different from James giving his attention to senior officers so that they might think favourably of him. Or the conversations James would seek out from a local molly he had come to know; seeking gentle understanding and a sympathetic ear for the way his desires fell. Someone who did not expect anything from him besides the exchange of coin, and even that sometimes fell by the wayside.

“You are lucky,” they said to him one evening, the sound of the cicadas as thick as the heat in the air, their fingers tracing patterns over the sweat on James’ chest. “You can go. You ran away and hide where all can see, and do great things.”

“You could run away too,” James said after a silence, touching the Donata’s shoulder. “The the Navy does bring a sort of freedom.”

They pushed themselves up onto an elbow to smile softly down at him, tucking ink black hair behind their ear. “Not all of us are made of that,” they shrugged, hand slipping down James' abdomen.

All this growth and beauty, the exploration of both the world and himself that James conducted in his time on and around Malta, happened in one bright, idyllic blur. One might almost say charmed, James would think while sprawled out breathless on faded sheets; or perched on the flukes of _St.Vincent’s_ raised anchor, making hasty sketches of the ancient city silhouetted against the great golden sunrises, ready to go to his duties while his fellows were still blearily stumbling from their hammocks. 

All these youthful freedoms and glorious distractions. And yet James did not take his attention away from what he wanted - a career fine enough that he might be able to have a life he could stand. James might not always be sensible, but he was not foolhardy enough to be complacent. Not when there were times when he felt alien to himself and his uniform; an occasional sense of disquiet that he could not lay his finger upon.

Personal exploration was not encouraged in naval officers, however. James was kept too busy to think on it too long or too hard - soon finding himself leant to the _Madagascar_ and shipped back off to Greece as part of an escort for its new ‘little beggar of a king’ going to sit on his throne. And there distractions abounded.

* ***** *

####  -1833

The sun had dipped below the horizon, and James was running through narrow, winding streets, knowing he had only minutes before the jolly boat would push off back to the _Madagascar._

He had his hat in his hand, and a tight hold on the midshipman’s sword at his side as he dodged the celebrating Greeks spilling out all over the city of Nafpilon - toasting the birth of their free nation and the arrival of their king Otto to his capital - James calling out ‘ _parakalo’_ and ‘ _ya mas!’_ as he dashed past.

All had been making rather merry. James included; the flush of wine and exertion already in his cheeks before he had set off at a sprint so as to avoid a reprimand. His uniform was untidy, his lungs burning, and he was uncomfortable in places he had never been aware of before; his heart beating in such a mess of panic and the thrill of what he had just done, that James thought he might drop down dead as soon as he reached the dockside.

His skin was still singing with the strange, overwhelming sensations - almost painful, almost frightening, almost too much - of going to bed with another man and letting himself be buggered. It was the gravest of his unnatural desires, one that he knew he should have been able to deny himself; but there was only so many fumbled favours one could pay for or give out, never to be acknowledged, before starting to feel pathetic. James would not live on nervous, shameful scraps, it was frankly beneath him.

The harbour was quiet compared to the rest of the city; the revels loudest up in the main square and fading out into the silence of the twilight. James could hear the echoing slap of his shoes on the smooth stone as he ran through the stragglers making their way back to their own ships, slowing his dash to a brisk walk as he approached the boat from the _Madagascar_. 

He took great gulps of air despite the stinging stitch in his side, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve as he dropped his hat onto his head, saluting the bored lieutenant waiting on the dockside when he stepped smartly past him. An AB offered James a hand to help him down into the boat, bracing James when his unsteady legs made the descent rather ungainly. 

“Trip back will cure you of makin’ too merry, one way or other,” the AB laughed kindly, nodding his head to where the masts of the fleet, still bedecked in flags, were swaying on the dark waters. “At least so as the officer on duty don’t notice.”

“I can only hope,” James smiled shortly, easing himself stiffly down onto one of the benches.

His jacket was unevenly buttoned; James had been aware of it when he had hastily dragged his clothes back on, and he hurried to neaten himself. He made sure his fingers did not fumble, straightening his collar and setting his cuffs to rights as if he could not still feel the searching touch of strong fingers or warm lips beneath them. As if his knees and his hips and his backside were not still sweetly sore from gentle, insistent attentions. As if the heady mix of rose water and rich, woody eastern tobacco did not linger on his skin.

He glanced about at that thought, making sure that everyone else in the jolly boat was distracted either by talk or by trying not to list drunkenly when the lieutenant stepped down from the dock.

They would think he had met a young lady, his dashing charm winning him a sweetheart for the evening, rather than guess at the truth of what had left him so tellingly untidy. He was conscientious and bright, healthy and handsome and active, and if ever given the chance he was sure that he would be very brave; he was not the weak willed and dissolute sort that was supposed to fall into sodomy. 

“Right. No one do anything bloody stupid and fall overboard,” the lieutenant said, making a quick headcount. “When you’re ready lads, take her out.” 

James grasped the gunwale when the sailors pulled at their oars, digging his nails into the planking of the boat as it moved away from the lights of the dock and out into the thick dark of the harbour. 

He had noticed the fine man watching him while James went about with the naval contingent during the day. It was hard not to mark him, with his fair hair tousled into a fashionable cut, nose uneven as if it had been broken and expertly reset in his youth, all while immaculately dressed in the finery of some important continental dignitary. James had kept his eye on him too, their gaze catching occasionally, and it was no real surprise when, at a reception put on by the Austrian ambassador, James found himself conspicuously alone with the man in a secluded corridor of the ramshackle consulate. 

“ _I have until sunset, then I must return to my ship_ ,” James had said in French, as that seemed to be what most of the continent's aristocrats spoke, face heating when the man’s intelligent grey eyes had widened. 

“ _Why, you are bold_ ,” he replied as if he approved, his German accent elegantly faint, " _I thought you might be_ ," and had opened the door behind him, revealing the plush room beyond.

James had gone to his bed without any heady seduction or promise of pay. He would not lay the blame for that at the feet of Greece, with its myths and sacred loves between heroes. James was no Ganymede, carried naively away. 

Once, James had thought these wild, un-manly wants and thoughts that had taken shape while on _Pyramus_ might be banished after a year or two in the peace of Rose Hill, with his gentle and studious family. But he had been youthful then, and full of hope that at least in this, the placement of his desires, he might be able to direct himself to be normal. 

When the weather had been foul during his two years at home, all there had been to do was lay before the fire; James on his back telling tall-ish tales to the shadows on the ceiling ( _“..._ HMS Terror _, a great bomb ship, had to be heaved off a sandbank. And I was put in charge of the Portuguese labourers by Admiral Hardy himself!”)_ , or Will on his front reading aloud from a book; sometimes a poem in the original Latin or Greek, sometimes a rip-roaring tale of Rob Roy, and sometimes their mother’s poetry or her essays on philosophy, which made them both feel very worthy and intelligent. 

It was there that he truly listened to the words of Jeremy Bentham (an eminent philosopher who James had apparently met when a child, but he could not remember the man) who held that a person’s actions are morally right if they promote happiness; that religious doctrine should not constrain all men, and if no-one is harmed then personal fulfilment should be paramount. And it was there, on his aunt and uncle’s genteel hearth rug, that James decided it was better to be honest with himself in all things. 

_Know thyself,_ as the Delphic oracle had once advised.

His life was all denial and half truths anyway, James thought as he peered down at the unsettled, ink black waters of the Greek harbour, rippling with hopeful starlight. This was only one more secret to keep. James could not deny himself all things, could not be all lies and posturing, or he would become little more than a well tended facade with a husk of a man behind it. And that was no life worth living.

* ***** *

It's the novelty of it, James had told himself while spending the morning being rigged up for his role of Queen in the bawdy play for Malta’s garrison. That, combined with his own vanity, was why he asked about every layer he put on, making sure the pearls lay just so, taking in the way the red silk glimmered in the light.

It was the attention, James thought while he spent the day in his fine togs, directing John Boyd about with his fan. He was not a dutifully eager Mid while swishing about in silk skirts, running here and there for the officers; instead allowing himself to be far more gregariousness than his careful genteel wit allowed, and received a fair few gallantly doffed caps, and even a couple of whistles, for his boldness. 

It was the fun he had on stage, James thought. Allowing himself to be laughed _at_ without a single care for his masculine pride, all while laughing with abandon at the antics of his fellow midshipmen, having to wipe tears from his eyes and his stomach hurting from the hilarity. The supportive pressure of the corset’s baleen stays leaving his ribs pleasantly tender for days afterwards.

A week later, standing in the room of the molly he had become friends with, James asked if he might try on their dress while telling himself it was only curiosity.

It was the familiar touch, James told himself when his heart began beating faster as Donata’s soft hands helped him fasten the corset and step into petticoats; their green eyes and wide smile losing their mischief as James put on more and more layers.

It was… He was… 

It was him, but not quite. It was James Fitzjames without everything that meant, and without everything he had to be.

James held out his arms, taking in how the wide sleeves and skirts and sloping neckline drew attention to parts of himself he had never given much thought to before. He touched his bare shoulders, moulded his hands to the higher waist the dress had given him, smoothing them over the well worn, well cared for velvet to rest on his stomach. He turned one way and then the other, the skirts shifting around his legs as if they weighed nothing at all.

" _Oh ħelu,"_ Donata said from behind him, a sorry lilt to their voice as they lay their hand on James’ back.

"I know," James said, closing his eyes against both the brilliance of this moment, and the cold truth of what it meant outside of this room.

At last he knew. And at least he could look at himself in the mirror, meet his own dark gaze, and finally know who and what he was, even if it was to be folded up in paper and put away almost at once.

He had exams to pass, and a great career to build. These two years punting around the Med had been thrilling and free, but that freedom had never been set to last. And James - with his afterthought of a name, his tongue that moved with an un-British ease over foreign words, and his disinterest in women - could not afford the romance of thinking it could ever be otherwise.

* ***** *

####  \- 1835 

_Dear Auntie,_

_Liverpool is a fine, elegant city, full of purpose and people with thoughts turned to industry and the future. Although it is a frightfully cold February, so I must take back my bold assurance that I had no need for the warm things you insisted I take with me. I shall post them back to you when we set sail for the East_ _along with my thanks and love_.

_Col.Chesney is overseeing the provisioning of the ships, and the storing of the metal boats we shall put together on the Euphrates, so we have little to do other than check lists and cargo storage and go “hmm” and “seems to be in order” when the custom’s men come to check on us..._

“By God Fitzjames,” Chesney blustered when James was lifted, in a great rush of grey river water, onto the deck of the cargo steamer, “you’ve gone blue man!”

“S-sor-ry si-ir, _”_ James said, the chill in the air causing a violent shiver to wrack his body.

“Don’t know what yer sorry for,” one of the men who had pulled him out of the Mersey said as he bundled James to the stern. “You were in the river fer ten minutes, don’t know ‘ow you’re even standin’ ‘ere.”

“The f-el-low who fell ov-erb-oa-rd?” James asked as he was made to sit down, too cold to protest when his hair was pushed from his face and his waterlogged jacket hauled down his half frozen arms.

“Alive, thanks you to,” Mr Charlewood said in one breathless rush as he dropped James’ jacket with a wet splat, his eyes wide with worry and fair hair wild as if he had been pulling on it. 

“Good,” James nodded, watching Charlewood pulled off his own jacket without a thought for the cold and drop it onto James’ shaking shoulders, enveloping him in beautiful warmth that made James all the more aware of how frozen he was.

“It’ll get d-irty,” James protested, tucking his fingers into his armpits as he curled over on himself.

“Bloody hell, man” Charlewood hissed as he sat down beside James. He shook out a heavy blanket and wrapped it about the both of them, paying no mind to those looking on as he put his arm about James to lend him more warmth. “You have saved a man from drowning,” he said as he roughly chafed James’ arms, his skin beginning to sting as it was forcibly warmed. “Damn the bloody coat.”

James should have blushed - at both the attention and Charlewood’s familiarity - but his thoughts were spinning in lazy circles, starting again before he had fully finished them. James gave one last shiver, and leant back into Charlewood’s broad chest, drowsily listening to him recount everything that had happened while James had been trying to keep a panicking fool’s head above water.

_... Do not let the newspaper cutting enclosed alarm you. It makes a fine hoo-hah of the whole incident. I was perfectly safe, and not as near to being swept out into the North Sea as it would make it seem. I jumped after a customs man when he fell off the gangplank, and kept him afloat for the minutes it took for our supply steamer to get to us. I got a chill, but was warmed up quickly and plied with lots of hot soup and brandy until I fell into a most wonderful sleep, and am now as fit as ever._

_You will be pleased to know that I have made good friends, decent fellows who I would not hesitate to bring to tea; Mr George Cleveland, and a Mr Edward Philips Charlewood esq - who are fine conversation and even better fun…_

"You're a devil, Fitzjames!" Charlewood hissed. His fair hair and nightshirt were in disarray, a grin on his flushed face despite the blow James had delivered to his chest.

"Yield then," James declared, pillow raised for another strike, and so could not defend himself when Charlewood smacked him about the middle with a bolster.

"Never!" Charlewood cried, paying little mind to the others trying to sleep in their boarding house as he leapt forward and belaboured James with all his might. 

He was a gentleman, was Edward Charlewood, generous and bright, but he was also a quick little beggar when he wanted to be. James laughed as he tried to dodge around the dark room, the claret from supper making him giddy enough to not only engage in this gleeful childishness, but to make the uneven floor feel so pronounced that a wallop to the shoulder had him foundering on the sagging bed. 

It squeaked as he tried to right himself, Charlewood knocking him back down as he jumped up onto the bed and knelt beside James, bolster poised to strike. 

“Give in,” Charlewood demanded, the faint gaslight from the street catching the mirth in his eyes and the flash of teeth in his breathless smile. 

Something swooped heavily in James’ chest. An emotion that made poets soar and suffer in equal measure, but one James could not entertain; not at any moment nor for any man, and certainly not a shipmate he was set to cross the near east alongside. 

James' stomach clenched as a great sense of loneliness came over him, but he made himself give Charlewood a defiant look all the same. 

“I shall not dishonour the service so,” James huffed, resolving to cast this feeling aside entirely as he caught Charlewood up the side of his head and scrambled off the bed.

_... Little changes day to day for me. Only the usual naval things that occur a hundred times and I have written about a hundred times. But I shall write again before departing, and hope you will write any little trivialities of home to me._

_Give my love to Uncle and send it on to Will. And keep the largest portion for yourself._

_Your loving,_

_James_

* ***** *

####  \- 1837

“Ah, there we are,” James said to his reflection, moving his mouth around the English vowels that still felt strange after months of only Arabic while he plodded around Syria. “That’s more like yourself, old boy,” he tapped his palms to his tingling, freshly shaved cheeks, “got your face back.”

The junior officers’ steward had already neatened James' ragged hair, and his years of back pay had more than covered the cost of a replacement for the uniform that had been lost almost a year ago to the depths of the Euphrates.

" _I shouldn't like to go about all day in skirts_ ," Charlewood, whose hair had turned even more golden in the desert sun, had said back when James had been forced to don local dress. " _I'm sure it's not regulation for officers_."

" _Well it hardly permits officers to go about in naught but their skin_ , _which is my only other option,_ " James had stated, sitting with his feet kicked out on the deck before him. Thinking, not for the first time, that to be dressed in a way which was not masculine, and yet not wholly feminine to European eyes, was actually rather freeing. " _Of course, if you think that would be preferable, Ned,"_ he had grinned, batting away the pencil Charlewood tried to fling at him.

James looked more like himself than he had for a good while, despite the tan on his face and hands, leaving him so nut brown he had easily been mistaken for a local. Which, once he reached Navy ships in Beirut, had allowed a great many practical japes that were rather jolly, and James hoped Charlewood and Cleveland would catch up with him soon so he could tell them all about it.

(Will would find it all amusing, his aunt would shake her head while smiling wryly, and his uncle, James thought with a painful stab of grief, would have commended his athleticism and joked at least once a week about the post having been walked all the way from Syria.)

Yes, James looked more like himself, with his neat hair and pressed uniform, but felt _almost_ like himself. He was _almost_ right, on the brink of feeling comfortable and complete, but knew the other option, even if it were possible to throw on a frock while aboard a naval ship, would not make him feel any more right.

Which was odd, as there had been many a time since Malta where it felt like that might be the only thing that could balance him. Now, looking at the weather-beaten James Fitzjames in the mirror, he felt not much like anything.

He dropped the flannel down beside the basin, considering throwing himself onto his berth to certainly _not_ wallow, before turning on his heels and pushing aside the curtain to the narrow cabin he had been given.

He ascended two ladders to get to the deck, trying to keep his stride as he had rather lost his sea legs after sailing on rivers for so long. It felt good to be back on a real ship again, with the shouts and activity of the men, the creak of the rigging, and the salt spray on the thick Mediterranean air. 

James had made his way to the quiet bow, eyes turned to the endless sparkling sea with not a spot of dusty, dry land in sight, when a voice he half remembered spoke from behind him.

"Mr Fitzjames?"

James turned, and it took a moment for him to recognise the round, weathered, dark face and light brown eyes that were wrinkled from squinting into the sun. "Abel?''James said, surprised, noticing that the man was dressed as a petty officer when he stepped forward to offer his hand. "My apologies. Mr Davidson! Good lord. Carpenter's Mate now, is it?"

"Aye," Davidson smiled his crooked smile as he gave James’ hand a firm shake. "We've both gone up in the world, sir." 

"Indeed we have." James agreed, tugging on the hem of his jacket as he beamed down at his old shipmate. "I did not know you were aboard, or I would have--"

"Ah, don't mind that, sir," Davidson adjusted his cap on his woolly black hair. "I saw you just now. You've changed a deal, but I knew you," he looked James over, smiling again, and James felt as pleased by that as when he had been a boy. "Heard you were a passenger, but when I saw you come aboard with that beard I didn't think it could be neat Mr Fitzjames." 

"I did look rather wild, yes," James admitted, embarrassed to have been seen like that by someone who knew him "Walked eight-hundred miles over Syria, you know."

Davidson raised his eyebrows. "That ain't 'half a long way. What on earth for?"

"Delivering post from India, if you'd believe it,” James said with practised nonchalance. “One hopes it was all good news."

"No doubt made someone's day with those. Letters 're always --" he glanced over his shoulder when a lieutenant called his name. "Alas but I must to my duty.”

“Of course.”

“I am glad to have met you again, Mr Fitzjames.”

“As am I," James said, "I trust we shall cross paths again before England."

"Well, now I know you are who you are," Davidson said with a hint of his old boyishness as he tugged the forelock to James who nodded, watching Davidson stride away with that same confident gait of his youth.

Paths were always crossing in the Navy. For a service with such a wide influence one was always running into acquaintances, and what a pleasant surprise this had been. 

It had been almost ten years since the _Pyramus_ , James thought as he turned to look out over the bow once more. James could not say if he was anything like the fifteen year old Abel had last met; he was both more sure of himself and more burdened, more confident while knowing how precarious everything was. It was strange, yet it was gladdening to know that despite everything he had seen, and done - and the unmentionable things he now knew about himself - that he was not so different.

James clenched his hands behind his back, scraping his bottom lip through his teeth as a bitter voice whispered in his ear that he was simply good at deceit. That after a lifetime of pretending, he had simply become proficient at acting like he was still someone a decent fellow like Abel would want to come and speak to.

It stung when he dug his nails into the meat of his hand. He dropped his gaze to the gunwale, his uniform suddenly the only thing keeping his head up, and turned on his heels to head down below decks. 

* ***** *

####  \- 1838 

When he and Abel had been paid off from _Pyramus_ , they had been boys trying to take a parting - and the dissolution of their fast, childish friendship - nobly; going their separate ways quickly rather than have time and tide make them strangers.

It was easier as a Mate at loose ends and a Carpenter’s Mate with his next voyage lined up ("Van Diemen's Land. It's a bloody long way") to share a drink and a fine time. They had propped up a table in a corner of the _Ship Anson_ tavern on the Hard, its brick recesses lit by the smoking tallow candles set high on the walls to prevent them being knocked onto the sawdust floor; James perfecting his tales of Ottoman lands while Abel had showed off his other tattoos, boldly winking at the ladies of the tavern whenever they whistled at him.

James would not say he had felt like a child again, sitting there talking and laughing in a dim corner with Abel. His childhood was a long gone innocence. But James found himself fondly recalling that boyish time when the stakes felt higher than they really were, before he had known what success would demand from him. And, frankly, how easy life was when one was a sexless youth.

Ease was not nearly the same as happiness though, time had proved that. And a year after James had returned to England, in a dark and dank alleyway behind the very same _Ship Anson_ tavern, with the air stinking of old beer and cats, and the whirl of music and voices from the Hard muffled by ragged breathing and the smack of skin against skin, James could say he was quite happy indeed.

The man braced against the brick wall worked in the dockyard. The sweet scent of freshly cut wood and clean sweat clung to him, his rough wool jacket pulling over his broad shoulders when he rocked back into James' thrusts. His broad hand was clutching James’ thigh, encouraging him to move faster, and James gladly complied, gripping the man by the hip and the shoulder as he rode him hard, delicious heat curling in his belly. 

“Yes,” the man ground out, muttering something that James could not quite hear, but it sounded like he was extolling the virtues of sailors. 

James grinned, as proud as any man who was showing his quality as a lover. He flicked his hair off his face as he widened his stance, leaning over the man to press against his back as he reached for his straining cock. 

He brought the man off quickly as there was never any time to linger, the way he tensed and jolted drawing James quickly over the edge into his own delight.

As in all of these liaisons there was a moment of mutual peace and satisfaction after both had spilled, where they were too insensate to do much beyond catching their breath. It was almost like intimacy, and that made the perfunctory tidy up and quick parting feel horribly impersonal. A reminder that all the sparkling delight they had bought one another had been little more than a means to an end.

Which was all it should be, James thought as he picked his officers cap up from the broken barrel he had left it on, letting the man clear off before getting on his way. It was the sating of a base desire, James using his evenings leave from _Excellence_ the same as any other sailor might. 

Anyway, there was no use feeling sad and lonely about it. If James wanted a sweetheart, like the men would sing about in the fo’c’sle or his fellow officers would nervously write letters to, then he should have been made differently. 

James tugged on the collar of his lieutenant's uniform, ignoring the tingle of exertion in his thighs as he strolled around the corner of the building and down the cramped alleyway towards the street - tiptoeing around suspect puddles as he went. 

The Hard was as bright and disorderly as it always was; sotted men spilling out of crowded taverns, filling the night air with music and singing, and the high pitched laughter of women. James knew he would not likely find any of his friends from _Excellence_ without some effort, and was deciding whether he should just return to the ship as he turned and startled when he found he was being watched through a cloud of grey cigar smoke. 

“I wondered how long you’d stand about like a freshly caught Midshipman,” Henry grinned as he stepped up to James, four armed marines pausing in their business to let him pass.

“I knew perfectly well you were there,” James sniffed, smiling when Henry chuckled. “Where did you get a cigar from?”

“I tried your trick, old boy,” Henry explained, James falling into step beside him as he wandered off towards the dockyard gates. “I was the last at our table once everyone had found a young lady to their liking, and I so finished all their drinks, and am in the possession of two half smoked cigars. I’d offer you one, but you shall tell me ‘ _no thank you Dundy_ ’," he lowered his already deep voice to say, "and to ‘ _buy my own_ ’ which is all a terrible bore, really.”

“I might not tell you to buy your own,” James said as they crossed the path of a group of unsteady sailors who stopped their merriment, moving quickly out of the way with mumbled _sirs_ or tugged forelocks, “seeing as you are both alone, and markedly sober.”

“I'd hardly count your excellent company as being alone, old boy,” Henry stated with a puff on his cigar.

“Quite right too," James said, because it was. "But I am hardly a lady of - the usual company for a night such as this, shall we say."

"It is not as if they're going anywhere, those bordellos and _houses of ill repute_ , eh?" Henry waved the cigar around, stepping closer to James so their elbows bumped together. "There have been some desertions from the _Ajax_. Marines are abroad looking for them and you know how thorough those fellows are. If they find anyone up to no good, you'll be up before the admiral in no time." 

Henry did not look at him as he spoke, which James was most glad of as he was trying to stop his terror from clawing out of his stomach at the thought of engaging in sodomy while marines were searching the port. It was the same fear that prowled the shadows of every one of his ill advised weaknesses, telling him that he would be caught; that the Navy was going to catch him and dispose of him as the Articles demanded, and it would be sooner rather than later. 

"So,” Henry shrugged as their stroll came to a halt by the curve of the dockyard wall, “I thought I'd keep a weather eye on my fellow _Excellencies_."

That Henry had come to guess this truth about James was not something they spoke of; after all, it was hardly a conversation to have over tea in the wardroom. All that mattered to James was that Henry knew something of his proclivities, and had remained James’ friend. He could not account for it, nor Henry’s lack of fear and disgust that was upheld as the natural reaction to such things as James was, but he would not question it. For it scared him as much as it was such a great relief to be known, even in this small, unspoken way, and to still be liked.

"I… " James cleared his throat, setting his shoulders and settling his weight on his back foot as if they were discussing nothing of importance. “Would be a terror if Charlewood got caught wrestling topmen again.”

Henry laughed. “Perish the thought,” he closed one eye in a wink. “I am developing my officer’s eye for those up to mischief,” Henry said as a commotion drew their attention back to the Hard in time to witness a coach full to bursting with sailors clutching bottles and indecently dressed girls go thundering past, a wave of cheers and jeers following in its wake. 

James turned back to Henry, who was pointing after the coach. “Much like those fellows.”

* ***** *

_My Dear Will_

_I never thought I’d see the day - and in truth, I have not. If my reckoning is right, you should be swearing your solemn oaths of matrimony as I write this, and although I am looking out of a gunport at the coast of the Holy Land, I assure you my thoughts are with you and your bride on this happy day. I wish you both my felicitations, and I am most eager to meet the new Mrs Coningham upon my return, which I hope shall be soon…_

* ***** *

####  \- 1841 

“... you will know more about the sea and shore than I, or William, but we find it all to be most agreeable," Elizabeth said, nodding towards the pale blue ocean that was rushing over Brighton’s stony beach at such a volume it was audible all the way on the genteel promenade they were strolling down.

A world away from the soft sand of the levantine beaches James felt he had only just left behind; the waves coming in with hardly a sound until they almost touched the edge of the Ottoman camps he would slip through in the dead of night.

“Brighton seems a very agreeable town,” James said, thinking of all the elegant houses that stretched back from the seafront, each one so identical to its neighbour that James would struggle to pick out the road Will lived upon, let alone his house. “And far enough from London to keep William out of political mischief, and away from propping up the art trade.”

“One would think,” Elizabeth smiled gently, her mousy brown ringlets bouncing against her slender cheeks as she shook her head. “The house is half full of Raphaels. I fear they shall cover the windows soon,” she peered around the edge of her green bonnet to look up at James with her large, solemn eyes. “Although William has not purchased one since you have come to visit us, and for that I must thank you.”

James would have said that of course his presence was far more entertaining than looking at old drawings, but did not know if such a statement might cause insult to William’s new wife. A lady who he liked very much despite only having met her last week, their conversation before then amounting to few letters exchanged while James had been on _Ganges -_ making sure all sides remained honest in yet another Egyptian uprising against their Ottoman masters. 

“A small repayment for your kind hospitality,” he said instead, immaculately polite.

“You are hardly a guest, Fitz,” Elizabeth said good-naturedly, and all James could do was dip his head in well-mannered acknowledgement.

They carried on their walk, that Will had all but ordered them on. He had got the idea in to his head to encourage James and his wife to become the best of friends before James was shipped off to China, and the animated mood he was currently in the midst of was not one that could be argued with. They discussed the weather (“I can hardly worry about unhealthy, damp sea air when you sailors are all in such very fine health”), the Pavilion, (“I think it looks half fairy-tale, half vulgar” James had said, which made Elizabeth hide a smile behind her gloved hand), and Marryat’s Gothic novel about the Flying Dutchman, (“I must admit I gasped once or twice” “Oh, it terrified half the wardroom”). James swung between chattering away as easily as if he was with Will or his mother, and being very aware this genteel good impression might be the difference between keeping his family, and becoming the relative of unsure provenance whose Will's wife merely tolerated.

"Ah. Oh," Elizabeth said abruptly, and James followed her gaze up a side street to a woman stepping out of a dressmaker’s with her daughter, who was wearing an alarmingly pink dress.

"Do you know them?" James asked, crossing one leg over the other and leaning on his cane as they came to a halt.

"I do, but that was not why I spoke aloud," Elizabeth said, adjusting the strap of her reticule that was wrapped about her wrist. "I was simply reminded that I had to collect something from -” she lay her hand over her stomach. “It does not matter. I will send the girl, Daisy, to pick it up."

"Do not put off your errands on my account," James said, swinging his cane as he straightened, indicating for Elizabeth to lead the way along the cobbled street. "I have not been so long at sea that I may faint at the sight of silk ribbons."

The bell above the door rang when James opened it for Elizabeth. He was careful of her dark green skirts when she stepped past him, tipping his hat from his head as he followed her into the dressmaker’s. 

It smelt of rosemary and lavender, the walls covered in bolts of shimmering smooth silks and pristine lace, glass jars of bright buttons, and slim boxes that James thought a gentleman ought not try to read the labels of. 

Elizabeth was greeted by a middle aged woman in a handsome brown dress, who gave James a mild, questioning look. A contrast to the frankly wolfish way the two dark haired young ladies perusing the gloves were looking him over, the girl serving them keeping her pale face turned to her work.

“Mrs Ways, this is my husband’s brother,” Elizabeth introduced him without missing a step, “A lieutenant in the navy.”

“At your service,” James said, bowing his head politely as the ladies curtseyed, flicking his hair out of his eyes when he straightened.

He stayed near the front of the shop while Elizabeth spoke quietly with the proprietress, looking about at all the intricate, varied trims and exquisite pieces of embroidered ribbons that James had always liked watching glimmer and sway while ladies danced. They were so delicate, and far more finely made than anything James had ever seen in a tailor’s. Light, James thought as he let his fingers brush over a piece of lace that looked as if it should fall to pieces under his sailor’s hands. 

The brightly coloured ribbons were impossibly soft, softer than the butter yellow silk of his own waistcoat, and the bolt of cotton that was laid out, covered in small printed flowers, filled him with a sense of something he could not name. 

Maybe it had been a mistake to accompany Elizabeth into the dressmaker’s, James thought, his heart beating against his ribs in a wholly different way than fear or exhilaration. It was wanting, but not in a base way, or in the manner of hunger; more similar to his desire for a name he could be proud of than anything else. To fit.

He turned, tucking his curious hands behind his back, aware of one of the young ladies turning slowly back to her business in a way that made it clear she had been watching him.

It would be nothing to say a polite word or two to her, and as Brighton society was so small it would be no difficulty to find a way to be introduced to her at some gathering or another. Maybe, James thought as he cast a look at all the bolts of fabric piled up to the ceiling, he should make a go at being any other young man. For at twenty-eight he was far too old for these fancies and thoughts, and should rule himself as a true Englishman would, rather than linger in these indulgences.

He had never considered marriage for himself; he supposed he had always held it in too high a regard from seeing his aunt and uncles united happiness in his youth. But Will had married a woman he had known for a matter of months, and they were content, and many of James’ peers were rapidly marrying now they could afford to. Settling down, having a family, was the natural state of things, was it not? And it did sound rather nice, having a partner to face life alongside. To never be alone. 

But for all James’ faults, he tried not to indulge in the vanity of selfishness. And to lie to any woman who he could call his wife, to deceive her as to what sort of man he was - that would be a horrible selfishness. 

His life was built on deceit and hidden truths, and to drag someone else in to all this would be a lie too far.

Elizabeth turned as the proprietress stepped into a back room, her skirts rustling almost musically, and looked at him with fond sort of approval. He nodded his head to her in return, pushing away his crawling sense of shame with practised ease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next - Fwancis, and a capital story.
> 
> A Note: I used they/them pronouns for donata's brief appearance because how a 'molly' would refer to themselves has been lost to history / the ideas of gender in the early 19th century. and I wanted to be respectful.
> 
> If anyone is at all interested; [ an article](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/26/sexual-irregularities-morality-jeremy-bentham-review) about my boy Jeremy Bentham, being a Lad and speaking truths.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the man you've all been waiting for - FRMC
> 
> I've looked at this so many times that some of it makes no sense, so I apologise for any janky bits.

####  \- 1845 

"... and at this point I had quite lost my scabbard, can you believe it? Admiral Parker said to me later that it had no doubt been shot off -"

"Frightfully lucky if that was all that got shot off," the younger John Barrow commented in an undertone, and James made sure he laughed along with all the officers and officials standing about him on _Erebus’_ pristine quarterdeck; the ship perfectly settled at anchor with the hubbub of Greenhithe to port, and the widening curve of the broad river Thames stretching out to starboard. 

"Quite, old boy," James tipped his head to Barrow in recognition of the jest, settling on his back foot. "Small arms were whizzing about all over the place, although modesty demands I say that they were not so very powerful, for the Chinese have not progressed beyond the use of matchlocks."

There was murmuring and tutting at that, and Sir John Barrow - who was leaning so heavily on his cane that James was at the ready in case he needed to stop the secretary of the Admiralty from toppling over - began explaining the inherent lack of original thought in the despotic orient. James only half listened, letting his gaze slide over to Graham, who was pleasant under all circumstances, then to Fairholme, who was listening intently as he had been in Africa during the China war. And then to Henry, who was shooting furtive glances forward, his mind no doubt turned to all the work that still needed doing.

_Erebus’_ wide deck was as yet devoid of the five years worth of supplies they would be taking with them; piles barrels and crates waiting on the dock as the ship was now full of navy men and assorted dignitaries. Everyone seemed so certain of the expedition’s success that their preparations were liberally peppered with functions and dinners such as this, so that Sir John Barrow might publicise his final great push to discover the Passage; and James was determined to use it all to his full advantage. 

He would tell any gallant tale an Admiral wanted to hear, would actively listen to Naval cartographers and men from the Board of Ordinance, and hoped he asked intelligent question from those men from the Royal Societies of this or that. For he knew that his favour with Barrow was on as uncertain ground as the man’s health, and that his friend from _Pyramus,_ Barrow junior, would take a few years yet to rise to the position his father had in the Admiralty. 

And the third Barrow present, standing by the mainmast with his pretty wife, laughing at something Lady Franklin had said, was a liability James wanted to distance himself from.

James had neither met, nor corresponded a single word with George Barrow before receiving a note two weeks after the _Cornwallis_ had anchored in Singapore harbour, inviting James to supper. That in itself had not been strange, for he knew Barrow’s younger brother and it was not unusual for invitations to be sent to those one might have a connection to when their ship came into port - it was the address he was to meet Barrow at that gave James pause.

There were places to enjoy the company of men and boys in every city in every country, if one knew where to look. James had not attended Singapore’s, as Admiral Parker’s favour was not something he would have risked for a purchased fuck, but he had wandered down that winding, dimly lit backstreet of tightly packed houses and hurrying Europeans out of curiosity, mostly. It alarmed him to think he had been recognised, and by a man he had never met; only agreeing to see Barrow out of concern for what might happen if he did not.

The evening had been as close as the sultry day that preceded it, the heat on the island thick with humidity in a way it had never been in the near East. Barrow had sweated through his shirt while he told James of a family wishing to complain, of payment demanded for silence. Of how he needed James' help because all of this must be kept away from his house, because Barrow did not want to break his wife’s heart. 

“ _Then you should not have engaged in this in the first place,”_ James had upbraided him while he paced the well furnished private room that Barrow had rented - furious that this man had been able to have a normal married life and yet was too selfish to be happy with what he had, and furious that he had been dragged into it. “ _You brought this on yourself - places like this_ ,” he indicated the tavern they were in, “ _are where you go when you want to be bent over and buggered,”_ he had snapped crudely to make Barrow flinch. “ _You don’t go racing around after some youth as if there would be no consequences!”_

But there never were consequences for men like Barrow. His name was too important and brought too many favours, they had both known it. So James had helped broker that base little blackmail, knowing he would never have the luck nor the influence to be saved from a disaster such as this, and then go on to attend London society with his wife on his arm as if they were a picture of domestic joy. 

James looked away when Sir John Barrow's tone of voice signalled a jest, and laughed politely as he tucked his hands behind his back.

A question was asked about the siege of Chusan, and James let Graham answer it; for only bores cornered a conversation, and it never did to hoard all attention and glory to one’s self. Especially from one’s friends.

"And you see gentlemen, the calibre of the officers we have given Sir John Franklin,” Barrow said once Graham had finished his bloodless tale of the naval bombardment, while describing the mudbrick walls and wooden city with an artist's eye, “in our brave lieutenants and the valiant Commander Fitzjames?”

James would not have laid it on quite so thick, but then they were being all but sold to the public; painted as heroes before they had done anything. Which was not what James wanted. He had done no more than any other officer in China, and being shot was not glorious, even though James was hardly going to dissuade others from thinking him heroic. Admiral Parker had been impressed by his quick action and competence, but chance had seen his involvement in that unsavoury matter with George Barrow, and now he had powerful men in his debt. 

That debt was the reason he was standing here in a commander’s uniform. His accomplishments had counted little towards it, and James hoped he might use this chance, away in the distant Arctic, to earn this success and this rank.

Which James was never more aware of than when he was in the company of Captain Crozier.

He was, as always, standing nearby to Sir James Ross and Mr Blanky, with Sir Edward Parry and Captain Fischer in their little gathering amidships, all talking away with the ease of old friends. Crozier was being engaging and amusing judging by their reactions (and Blanky’s irrepressible laughter), his uniform worn to the breadth of his figure through use in the Antarctic. It usually gave him a solid, comfortingly knowledgeable bearing that one wished to defer to, but this morning he was holding himself as if his uniform was stuffed with straw.

Crozier was a man uncomfortable with and ill suited to the rounds of polite socialising expected from officers looking to advance their career. James had become an expert in all that while on Malta, and was fully aware that it was no true mark of success, nor a way to a lasting legacy. Crozier had what truly mattered; the respect of the great men who he sailed with, gaining his position by skill and diligence alone. His promotions were slow, but honestly attained, which James was not sure he could claim of himself. Sometimes he was certain Crozier knew it too; that he could see that James’ facade was a little too polished and that, deep down, James was just grasping vanity - and further down, something even worse.

Crozier looked around as if sensing James’ attention. The shadows thrown across his face by the peak of his cap hardly hid the surprise in his expressive eyes that quickly shuttered, and James felt discomposed to be looked at so flatly, as if he was but a silly trinket. One of Crozier’s eloquent eyebrows was on it’s way to being raised in a blunt question that would have had the midshipman in James quaking, but James headed it off by dipping his head to Crozier in a amiable fashion; hoping he would see it as the outstretched hand of friendship James hoped to turn this awkwardness in to.

He got an unsure grimace of a smile in return, and a quick nod, before they both turned quickly away. 

If the man would not meet him halfway, then what was James to do! Maybe Crozier would relax once they set out, James thought as he watched Fairholme make Admiral Ekins’ daughter smile. Then he might win a boyish grin and a quick laugh that he had seen Sir James Ross or Mr Blanky draw from the captain, banishing the prickle under his skin that came whenever Crozier settled his level gaze on him.

And if not, then it would be two or three years on separate ships, and James would not have to worry about it while they made their somewhat perilous, painless way around one of the last unseen places in the world.

* ***** *

####  -1846

Sir John had taken ill after the ships were freed from the ice around Beechey. It was nothing serious, merely a bout of sea sickness that came to most men when ships were first in motion - " _After all_ ," James had said while sipping the powerful coffee Bridgens had made him, the strong smell making Sir John look queasy, " _Lord Nelson_ _sometimes struggled with his sea legs"._ This nausea combining with Sir John's grief over the loss of those men they had left buried on the lonely island, and caused him to be very low in both health and spirits; the deaths a greater toll on Sir John than their number would suggest.

Not that James did not care about the loss of life. He was no monster. But to die surrounded by friends and receiving a careful burial was not so bad a fate. Not compared to bleeding past the point of pain in a stifling sickbay while a gore soaked surgeon tried to sew you up with fingers made slippery with your blood, bright future narrowing down to a forgotten burial at sea on the other side of the world.

Crozier shuffled into the position of temporary expedition commander, remaining terse and unhappy; proving the maxim that it wasn't positions which lend distinction to a man, but rather men who enhance positions. 

He did not abandon command meetings, which was something at least, but declared that only one officer from _Erebus_ need attend. No doubt hoping for Graham to be sent, as he was as congenial a first lieutenant as James had ever met, and an Arctic veteran to boot, so was the _Erebite_ Crozier liked rather than tolerated. 

Naturally, James had handed _Erebus_ to Graham and gone to _Terror_ himself.

It had been simple chart pondering, supply comparing stuff, Crozier managing to not be monosyllabic only because James had assented to his offer of a glass, then two, of whiskey. The uncannily bright Arctic summer sun was shining through _Terror’s_ stern windows, making the sparse great cabin almost look picturesque, turning Crozier’s copper hair into alarming shock of colour in such a lifeless landscape, and James had asked, “when you sailed to the Antarctic, did you journey along the west coast of Africa?”

Crozier paused where he stood on the other side of the table, fingers resting on the chart of Lancaster sound, looking as if he expected a trap to be sprung. “We did, but not closely.”

James sat back in his chair, cocking his head to tip his hair from his eyes as he tapped his finger twice on the cut glass tumbler before him, watching Francis flick his gaze down to the movement. “There is an Island about a mile off the coast of the Namib desert called Ichaboe, which is flat, featureless, and would be wholly unimportant if not for the thirty foot deep deposits of guano.”

That got a thoroughly puzzled look from Crozier, who let his fingers slide off the chart as he turned towards James. 

“Sounds like a vile place,” he conceded gruffly, then. “Penguins stink bad enough in the frozen Antarctic.”

“It could make one’s eyes water at two miles distant,” James said, picking his way carefully forward as Crozier did not care for grand stories or showy tales, and James was still hopeful of navigating their their stilted relationship into more friendly waters. For if one is liked, then certain personal faults might be kindly ignored. “How the men harvesting the stuff for fertiliser could breathe, I do not know. A wretched job in a wretched place, and I was the wretched officer sent to police it, for those with rights to the stuff were squabbling over bird shit, can you imagine?”

James had stumbled over the profanity, and either the surprise of hearing James curse, or the notion of fighting over bird droppings, won him the quirk of a smile, pulling at the very edge of Crozier’s mouth. “I can, very easily.”

“And, because I had been sent by the Admiralty - _the Admiralty -_ to sort out bird shit,” James leant forward slightly in his chair, egged on by the amusement beginning to show on Crozier’s face. “I thought I better go ashore, be conscientious, despite pleas’ from several members of the crew - Bridgens included - not to make them suffer the stink, which became a visible haze up close. The stench distorting the very horizon and caused nosebleeds and fainting spells, and, according to Dundy, caused even the rats to try and jump ship.”

Crozier had let his glass rest on the edge of the table, looking confused but engaged by what James was saying. Interested in a small way, but that was enough. “Myself and the clerk, Mr Buckingham, were rowed to the far side of the island, where the accusations of theft had occurred. I, thinking little of it, stepped onto what I was sure was a secure piece of rock,” James said, pleased by the growing, knowing grin on Crozier’s face, “but in fact was a twenty foot depth guano. Which I disappear into it almost up to my waist, the vile stuff sickeningly warm.”

James did not need to describe how his trousers were flung into the ocean, or the marine corporal with them offering James a loan of his own trousers, for Crozier had thrown his head back and laughed, gap toothed and eyes crinkling with merriment.

It gladdened James no end to see it, and not just because he took it to mean he had succeeded in this thawing of the captain. He thought mirth became Crozier very well. There was something loose and attractive about it, ridding him of a few of those careworn years he carried. Making the morose man into someone more personable, and so more suited to his position as one who all souls might look to for courage and encouragement. 

James sat back, and was feeling very pleased with himself at a job well done - for James always succeeded at what he set his mind to - when he caught the searching look Crozier was giving him over the rim of his glass. James disliked searching looks, and liked them even less when coming from Crozier, whose gaze sometimes felt icy enough to remove a layer of skin. 

He charted the surprise that flitted over Crozier’s face. The raised eyebrow and the not entirely kind look of amusement that, to James’ mind, could only mean one thing; that he had seen James' pleasure in having made him laugh, his admiration in how well that lightness suited Crozier, and noticed the improper impulse at the root of James' unwise regard.

James busied himself with his own drink, knocking it back smoothly as discomfort needled at him. Crozier was a hardened, keen eyed explorer, rather than an officer used to sailing about in friendly waters with one eye on promotions, and none of James' groundless confidence or grandstanding could withstand that. He should have left well enough alone, rather than be so careless as to leave himself open to being read by a drunk; not all men were as easy and accepting as Dundy, nor as perfectly clueless as Charlewood had been while becoming golden and lovely under the Mesopotamian sun.

It was safer to have Crozier at a professional arms length, and over the next few months James neither drew away nor did he try to foster any more closeness with the man. He trusted that Crozier would appreciate the distance, and carry on happily ignoring him. A peaceful _status_ quo, if you will. But then Francis had thrown James’ amusing anecdote, told in an attempt at friendship, back into his face; humiliating him at dinner before all of _Terror's_ officers as if they were nothing more than squabbling midshipmen. A personal act of spite meant to shame and embarrass.

And things, as they tended to, went downhill rather rapidly from there. 

* ***** * 

####  -1847

James had never, ever been struck before. He had received a corrective swipe or two with a rattan as all boys did, but he had never been dealt a blow as if he were in a tavern brawl, and _certainly_ not by his commanding officer. 

For a second or two he had been too shocked to feel the pain of the glancing blow, the great cabin erupting into a frantic scuffle that Jopson had pulled him away from.

“...John Ross at Fury Beach will happen to you,” Blanky was hissing when James turned to face the chaos - his head, which had been aching dully all week, swirling as his jaw gave a sharp throb. 

He had been in far worse pain in his life, so would not mewl or rage about this. He was more ashamed of his own prolonged loss of composure that had driven him to walk the half mile between the ships in the middle of a blizzard; all to harangue Crozier in a most unmanly fashion.

Everyone in the room was in a state of excitement, and the _esquimaux_ girl looked even more disgusted than when James had stepped into the cabin, so he resolved to be as collected as if all were not slipping rapidly into tragedy. James ensured he was calm even as he was left alone with the source of all his discomfort over the past two years, who was giving him a malevolent grin from the shadows of the stern gallery. 

James had managed to make him smile once. It seemed impossible now, but he had been pleased to see him laugh. And now he feared and needed this drunk in equal measure - feared his incompetence and needed his experience - and James almost hated Francis for that.

Crozier was as sotted as only a drunkard could be; mercurial and sullen, with a knowing, spiteful glint in his eye that James did not like. The man was so sick with drink and hoarded slights that he wanted to lash out, and it was to James that his ire always fell. But over the past year, James had found that he could withstand the animosity of a man in Francis' current state.

"We both know what's happening here, Francis. And I have come to discuss it, as your _friend_ ," James all but pleaded, but did so calmly, hoping his tone would settle Francis from his drunken rage.

"You do not have friends," Francis sneered, listing in his seat as a thud sounded from somewhere in the ship, "you only have fawning admirers, and it has always chafed you that I am not one of them,” he fell silent a moment, a pathetic oracle sneering out truths, then rallied to say. “You don't dare let people close enough to care for more than your exterior."

Which was nothing James did not know about himself, he thought sourly. “I might just as easily say that about you, Francis, as you have pushed away all who would help you.” 

"I pushed? That's rich coming from you, _Fitzjames_ ," Crozier mumbled, the fight seeming to drain out of him, leaving nothing more than a man wallowing in determined, sulking unpleasantness. Angry at a world that had never accepted those who did not match its accepted image of what should be. James wondered at how Francis did not know this, while shivering at the vision of what he might have been if he had not made himself someone who would seamlessly fit.

"Yes," James said simply. He wished then that he could tell Francis how he had always been alone, that not one soul, not even Will, truly knew him. That Francis had allowed people to know him and had fast friends, true friends who respected him for more than just the face he showed the world. Tell him that all this morbing was just vanity - of a different sort to James', but he knew it well.

He did not say it, for one did not pour one's heart out to a whiskey sodden ogre.

"And even so, you will name your affliction Francis," James declared, implacable as a captain should be. "By God I'll have it out of you…"

It was then they heard the raised voices above them, running feet, and the muffled crack of a rifle firing. There was only one thing it could be out here in the nothingness, and they shared a look of horror for the men on deck as the sickening, creaking groan of a mast toppling split the air. 

***

####  -1848

"Sir," Bridgens was saying softly, "please, come away now."

James shook his head, continuing to scrub as his fingers. "My hands are yet dirty, John," James said, suppressing a shudder at the blood in the water of his wash basin. Blood from the men he had worked to identify, their bodies still warm from the fire that had killed them.

He felt Bridgens take a breath before he spoke, "I think it might be your blood, sir."

James stopped, looking at the raw skin about his nails. "Then I must clean that away," he said, but did nothing more, only breathed the icy air that carried the smell and taste of charring with it.

There was some shuffling in the door of his cabin, shadows moving as Bridgens stepped in front of the lamps. James tipped his head one way and then other to try and push his collar from his face, rolling his shoulders to feel the way the light robes of Britannia shifted over the shirt and trousers he wore beneath them. A disguise over a disguise, covering a foolish man.

A towel was offered, thankfully not fresh and pressed because James did not know what he would do if he saw finery now. He took it, letting the pink stained water trail down his wrists and into the diaphanous cotton of his sleeves.

"You should go and aid Mr Goodsir," James said as he wiped his hands, frowning down at the boots that did not look quite like Bridgens', then up at the soot streaked, whey-faced visage of Francis Crozier. " _You_ should be on _Terror_ ," James told him, then glanced around to make sure he was indeed on _Erebus._ He had let his feet guide him over and through the ice, his mind churning over names and follies and the shock of heat when Doctor Stanley had…

" _Terror_ has three lieutenants who have been carrying on quite well without me. I do not think I will be missed," Francis said, voice weakened by the smoke or by shouting, James could not say. "Although I do not know what help I will be here beyond the handing out of linen, as Le Vesconte has everything in hand."

James nodded, setting the towel down before pressing the heel of his chilled hand to his sore eye. "We have been managing these past months" he said, not meaning it to be a rebuke even though his voice came out sharp.

"You have, and that you have had to manage is my fault. For that I am sorry," Francis said so evenly James peered at him, taking in his eyes that were startlingly clear of drink and all the more earnest for it, then dark circles beneath them, and the sickly clamminess of his skin.

As far as James knew Francis had been at death’s door yesterday, and now he had been wandering about on the pack for God knows how long. “Sit down, man,” James nodded to the great cabin, “you are yet unwell.”

Francis stepped back out of James’ cabin without one raised hackle or withering look. James had known that sobering up would bring about a change in Francis; had hoped that it would make him less melancholy, more reasonable, more able to do his duty as first in command. He had not expected the fine speech made before Carnivale had caught fire, nor had James expected this gentleness. This warmth that was given so easily, after Francis had been nothing but thorns for the whole time James had known him.

James followed Francis’ somewhat mindlessly, their footsteps uncannily loud on the deck, so used had James become to the constant noise of the extra fifty men packed on to _Erebus_. The thick silence that followed Francis reaching the table was even more peculiar, James aware of the frightened quality it had about its edges. 

“I am not so infirm that I need escorting, James,” Francis said, giving a small, self deprecating smile.

“I know,” he said, “Jopson would be here otherwise.”

Francis tilted his head to acknowledge that, and lowered himself stiffly into one of the chairs, James not missing the way his gaze flicked quickly over him as he did so.

James shivered as if remembering he was cold, the sweat on his skin prickling yet unable to freeze. He looked down at himself, clothed in the remnants of Britannia - the fine white gown sewn to look like elegantly draped robes, the bottom edge soaked with melted snow and ice so it had turned almost transparent, a scorch mark smudged over his right thigh.

He had chosen the contrived costume after seeing his own blood trail unprovoked down his forehead. After raging impotently at the shabby velvet dress he had allowed himself, for one moment, to distract from this unfolding disaster. Britannia was everything he had ever wanted to be, after all; eternal and sure of his place in the world, feminine yet allowed to be dauntless and brave.

James had taken off the breast plate at some point during this long night, the shield and plumed helmet lost in the ruins of Carnivale, and he did not miss them. This was no longer about shoring himself up against his own mortality and failings. This dress was not even a comfort, not with how the cold ran through him. It would be more sensible to change into something warmer, something more suited to the tragedy that had occurred, but James could not bear to be in his uniform. Could not stand that part of himself. 

James dropped into the chair beside Francis, exhaustion weighing on his limbs and making his mind turn sluggishly. He propped his chin on his fist and stared at the far end of the polished table, that side of the cabin turned murky in the thick, cold lamplight.

He had not looked up at the brief sunrise that had flared brilliantly against the flat grey sky. James had felt its warmth and light brush over the side of his face, as compelling as a lover’s touch trying to turn his head towards them, but he had known to look at the sun would make the darkness all the worse, and so kept his head down at his grim task of identifying the dead.

There was a touch on his arm now, warm fingers burning through his thin layers of clothing, and James dropped his gaze to Francis’ hand before looking up to meet his eyes.

On any other day it might have rankled him to be regarded with so much gentle concern. He did not need it, for he was a bold and capable naval officer. And he _certainly_ did not want it from a man who had let himself sink into pathetic ruin because his heart had blinded him to the realities of the world they all lived in, forgetting that there were some things one just can not have.

Francis took his hand away, James missing it at once, and laid it on the table between them, “ _James_ …” 

“I do not look for an apology, Francis,” James said gruffly, not knowing what he would do if he was spoken to gently. “Not for anything that has happened. I say there is no need. ”

“Oh there is,” Francis sighed, hand clenching and unclenching a few times, “and many times over.”

James shook his head. “We have all behaved abominably, in one way or another,” and their punishment was the ice trapping them here while scurvy slowly made its way through their bodies, promising as much death and agony as that bear had brought.

Francis, James realised with a hazy slowness as he looked at him, wore no neck cloth. Where it had gone in the confusion of the evening James could not say, but Francis was a man who would not give a thought to the price of silk or being properly dressed if a bandage was needed. Well, James would not either; he had sacrificed shirts his aunt had made for him in order to make more dressings for the wounded in China. But there was something about Francis that made the action feel much more noble when coming from him.

James could see the waxen skin of Francis’ throat shift as he swallowed down a protest to what James had said. It was a strangely vulnerable sight, but then Francis was the most unguarded man James had ever met. So very open in the most human of ways. Which was an unspeakable thing for a Royal Navy captain to be; a mere man. 

James’ fading eyesight and bleeding scalp were a terrible reminder of how fragile all that was. 

He neatened the skirt over his legs, folding his hands in his lap as he looked at Francis. “All that matters now is getting the men out,” he told him, alarmed to feel his voice catch in his throat.

“Yes,” Francis agreed, hesitating before laying his hand on James’ upper arm again, meeting his eye with such a look of stubborn sincerity that James almost believed they could do it. “Get us _all_ out, James. Your conduct this past year has set an example for every one of my duties that I have been shamefully lax in. So I can do no less than this,” he spoke gently, squeezing James’ arm in what was meant as a comfort, but only made James horribly aware of the tenderness of his old bullet wound.

It was the terror of scurvy that allowed James to reach out and grasp Francis' shockingly warm hand in both of his. The way he was dressed, the way he _felt_ \- raw yet everything pushed down deep, a human disguised as themself, an uncertain in between of everything manly and everything _not_ \- allowed James to curl in on himself, forehead pressed to the back of Francis' hand.

If this moment had occurred four months, one month, six days from this point, James would have pitched forward and buried his face in Francis’ shoulder, selfishly letting him bear James’ weight as well as the expedition entire. He would know Francis by then, trust him with himself and his men, depend on his leadership and judgement as James’ body and mind began to fail him.

Now all James could do was shake - not with tears, he could not weep even if he wanted to - and Francis smoothed his free hand over James' shoulders, an uncomplicated touch that expected nothing from him. Not a single thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ran this fic right into the back of other fic's in this series. [ through the red uncertain dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438138) happen's between this chapter and chapter 4, so if you would like the full (horrible, terrible, no good time) experience, go read that in between. 
> 
> (the flash backs in chpt 1 of Let The River Rush In also happens before chpt 4, but now it's just getting complicated. This is what happens when you do a series without planning to lool)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late, I apologise. I was suffering(tm) and just didn't want to edit. But we're here now. 
> 
> As I said in the last chapter, I have run this into the back of three other fic's I have written, so it'll be a test to see how much you remember of [Let The River Rush In chpt 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896634/chapters/47125870) and [ 'the fire that breaks...'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21001775). Because why tell a story in order?
> 
> Anyway. Enjoy!

_November 1848_

_Dear Francis,_

_May I start this missive by hoping dearly that you are well. I know we parted only a week ago, in as good health as two weeks under the care of London doctor’s might leave us, while the journey up to Oxfordshire is hardly strenuous after a trek across the Arctic and the voyage home across the Atlantic. Yet I would hear how you are._

_Please do not think less of me for disturbing your rest, I suppose that after so long being able to glance over to see how you fared that it has become peculiar to not be able to do so._

_I hope that Sir James and Lady Ross are well, as are their children, and that Oxfordshire suits you well. The weather in Brighton is fresh and wet, as expected, but the sun rises every morning and sets every evening, so I am content and do not mind my aches and pains..._

James stared down at the little he had written until the clock in the hall rang the half hour, his eyes slipping out of focus so the ink looked as if it had smeared over half the page. He glanced about his quiet and cosy room, the patterned wallpaper strange to him after years of blank wooden bulkheads. A single, white framed window looked out over a peculiar view of a neat row of elegant while terraced houses and a square of greenery, lined with bare cherry trees that James sometimes found himself staring at blankly for hours. Mind turning over nothing at all until he caught his reflection in the glass, hollow eyes and cheeks and greying hair, tongue poking the gaps in his teeth when he looked away.

He was adrift, sitting about with nothing to do and hardly a worry to fret him after having the fate of over a hundred souls in his hands. That half a dozen familiar faces (Bridgens, Mr Collins, Dundy _)_ were not at hand left him off kilter when he turned expecting to see or speak to them, and that Francis was not nearby caused him great disquiet; for the half a mile walk between ships had not been any distance at all really, not compared to all the miles they had travelled. He had become a great reassurance, and a great friend - a brother, for want of any other word to name the closeness James felt in his heart - and yet James would not pretend that it was only the lack of Francis’ physical presence that had him so distracted and overcome with listless sighs like Sappho’s lovesick weaver. 

He had laughed about it one night, face pressed into his sheets so no one would hear and think him mad; James Fitzjames, who had always kept his emotions and the untidy parts of himself at arms length, had laid himself bare before another soul without a thought. To a man who had lived his life with nothing but honesty, knowing he might receive nothing but distaste and censure in return. That had been madness, surely.

_Captain_ James Fitzjames, he thought as he gave the letter a scornful look, had walked across Syria and policed the Indian ocean and was a Gazetted war hero. He had fired a rocket at a primordial bear spirit! And now he was shy and uncertain about how to finish a note to Francis bloody Crozier.

_-If you are to go to Ireland to visit your family, I hope you will send me an address to write to._

_Mr & Mrs Coningham, who you met while we were all but quarantined in Greenwich, wish me to send their regards to you. _

_Again, I wish you good health, and some much deserved rest and quiet._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Capt James Fitzjames_

_*_

_November 1848_

_My dear Francis!_

_It seems that we wrote to one another at almost the very same moment! I was astonished at breakfast to find a letter in your hand, and have come upstairs to reply at once, imploring you not to find the note I sent you cold. Only I did not wish to carry on and be a bother, for we might very well be fed up of one another, which you will tell me is false at length no doubt and so I will just have to believe you!_

_Please do not think your descriptions of the country are either boring or ‘unaccomplished’, Ashton Abbots sounds perfectly idyllic and green. A colour I cannot help but gaze at - there is a view of a small park from my window, and I have found myself looking at bare trees and sparse, damp grass in wonder for hours. My dexterity has not yet returned for me to dare to put down any images that might be suitable to be viewed*, and Brighton is always prettier in the summer._

_I mentioned my aches and pains in my note, complaining like a sciatic old maid, but I am not so bad. I was a slug-a-bed for the first three days after we all arrived. I must admit I hardly rose for anything, kept company by my niece and nephew who are yet very young and so easily entertained, and Mrs Coningham would have been happier if I were lazy for yet another three weeks! saying I had earned it. But the problem with becoming well rested is that your thoughts gain strength, and they are not always pleasant. As I am sure you can understand. I hope Sir James is someone you can speak to, at least about a little of what happened, for I have found recently how unloading one’s burdens is a balm to one’s soul. Will has said I might speak to him after a nightmare wakes me, but I would not know what to say, or how to say it, or if it would bring ruin on me if I brought such a thing to Brighton, of all places - Will being Mr Coningham, he would not mind the informality..._

James realised he was prattling on at the same moment that he realised he had not even sat down at his leather-topped writing desk before taking up his pen. 

He flipped the tails of his frock coat out of the way as he sat, smoothing his hand carefully over the heavy stock paper covered in Francis’ looping, untidy hand. He smiled to himself as his eyes flicked over the wonderfully warm and sincere words, braver than the formal sincerity James had fallen back on when trying to reach out to Francis yet again. Only this time, he found a hand already outstretched towards him.

_\- (*I would fear you think this false modesty, but I hope the stilted nature of my handwriting might prove me honest in this.)_

_You will no doubt be more sedate in your reply to this than I have been to your own letter. Please do not think you must rush to make the morning post as I am doing now, only I do not wish you to only have such a short, formal letter when you wrote to me so carefully. It does no credit to me, or my regard for you. I would not have you thinking me cold._

_I remain your most affectionate friend,_

_James Fitzjames._

_*_

_December 1848_

_Francis,_

_The address at the bottom of this letter is for the Coningham’s house in London, for we are all off to the metropolis very soon. The frosts in this part of the world do not agree with me. Not with the ever present view of the sea, which does turn very pale when it snows. I am not so disturbed by it all yet, but Elizabeth decided we shall not take the risk, and the children are old enough to travel in winter without taking ill._

_I was most pleased to have your reply to my letter dated the 2nd of December, (Francis, I am appalled to read that you have been on a miles long walk with Sir James and the dogs. Have you not done enough walking! Good God man, I shall have to walk the length of the promenade to retain my status as Best Walker In The Service!). I thought with your two sister’s and brother coming from Ireland that your correspondence would understandably be delayed, although I would have greatly regretted the absence of our thrice weekly exchange of letters. I trust your family have arrived safely, and their journey was easy, and if not, I hope it shall be. Christmases at sea are jolly things, and one does miss home at all high days and holidays, but I do find on land the whole thing does drag._

_Will has walked past, for I am replying to you while sitting in the study, and demanded I tell you that I would eat puddings and twelfth cakes all the way to epiphany, which I of course do not dare deny._

_My eyes are finally able to focus for more than a page at a time of print and my headaches abated, so I have began to read again, which I find a most wonderful distraction - literature does carry one’s wounds for a little while - when all in the house are busy and your letters are picked through past propriety..._

James paused, pen resting on the edge of the silver inkwell as he read over his words, the only sounds the ticking of the clocks and the shuffling of Will thumbing through the bookshelf behind him. The admission was no more serious than things he had said in the Arctic, curled up in a shabby tent trying not to die, or on their long, slow journey home. 

And therein laid the rub. The safety of _home_ , and all the expectation it brought with it. Francis had been in the midst of rural, domestic bliss for the past month; children and dogs and homely comforts, watching Sir James Clark Ross doting over his lovely wife.

James could provide the dogs and the homely comforts with ease, what with that lump of money now sitting in his bank account; but the children, and a dutiful, cherished wife were things that were beyond him to give Francis. No matter what he might wish.

And if Francis saw that, and asked to be freed from promises made in the shadow of desperation so he might fully return to normality, then James would understand, and let Francis go. 

“All right, Fitz?” Will asked from the other side of the study, folio open in his hands as he watched James from the polished bookcases. His voice was light, but his expression had never quite lost the shadow of turbulent emotions that James had watched bubble up when they had caught sight of one another in the overwhelming marble rooms of the Greenwich Hospital. Will had raced through the milling crowd of survivors to embrace James with no thought for decorum, James too busy holding in exhausted tears to mind being held so tightly it hurt.

“Thinking,” James said, ignoring Will’s sceptical quirk of a brow as he turned back to his letter.

- _I hope I do not embarrass you to say such a thing. I have not lived a life that has equipped me for much honesty in expression of my emotions, and I hope you will understand when I say that I feel is not appropriate, so I do not know how to be appropriate about it. I shall say no more, only that I am most gratified to continue to receive your warm regard, and that I fear I have spoken at too great a length already. I would strike this whole paragraph, but I would not show such lack of trust in you._

_Sincerely yours,_

_James._

  
  


_*_

_January 1949_

_Dear James,_

_Thank Mrs Coningham for her kind invitation to me to visit. I would not wish to impose on the life of your family but I do not wish to cost you the postage of the great reply of protest you shall send in reply..._

James smiled at that, being careful not to pull on his re-formed scars as he rested his elbow on the mantelpiece. And being careful not to disturb little Lizzie, who had propped her doll up against his leg while she played around his feet.

_\- My sisters and brother have very much enjoyed an English Christmas and New Year’s, particularly the Wassailing of the local youth, which is almost like it is in Ireland. I thank you and Mr & Mrs Coningham for their concerns for my wider family in regards to the famine in Ireland. The scarcities are not so terrible for them, but felt all the same. _

_It snowed even more since my last letter. But the sun rose strong today and I again find the landscape very pretty. I never appreciated a rolling hill until lately and I am glad that I now do._

_My last sentence sounded as if you had written it which I hope you shall take as yet more proof of how closely I am reading your letters. I read some out the night before last as evenings sometimes take that puzzling turn (not in full of course). I could not do your eloquence or tone justice but there was laughter and agreement that your sketches of Brighton are indeed very pretty, I hope you do not mind my showing them._

_Reading your words out loud made me think of you and what we have said and promised one another. I mean to say that I thought of them more clearly, of you more clearly. I try not to become sentimental, despite my nature and my profession demanding it, but I often fail. Although I do not so mind failing when it comes to these certain instances, not that I could ever dare consider this to be anything other than something important. Something good and happy that I am not eloquent enough with pen and paper to say._

_My siblings are to return to Ireland on the 5th of next month, I shall depart for London five days afterwards if this is agreeable..._

“Captain Crozier has accepted our invitation,” James said aloud, glancing over at Elizabeth who was letting out some of the darts in James’ waistcoats as Christmas had finally seen him gain weight. "Tenth of next month."

"I did not doubt he would," Elizabeth said as if the matter had been settled as soon as the offer was made. "It shall be very congenial to have the captain here and to get to know him better, with how often you write to one another,” she reached out to smooth her son’s hair where he sat next to her on the striped settee, stacking the cotton reels on their limewood stand.

James nodded, turning back to the rest of the letter; reading it once, then twice, stunned at what Francis had to tell him. 

“ _Well_ ,” he breathed, still being careful of Lizzie’s doll as he straightened to face Elizabeth who was watching him quizzically. “To repeat a rumour is no wise thing, but Sir James Ross has done so. Apparently, we - that is Francis and I - are to be knighted,” he said, bemused, and grinned when Elizabeth dropped her work as she let out a gasp of surprise.

_*_

_February 1849_

_You are arriving tomorrow. Coming into Paddington station, which you will find frightful. I am sitting on the floor in my dressing gown writing this to you, even though I do not know if I shall ever let you see it._

_Your last letter came four days past, and though I had no need to reply because you are coming here, to me, I have known no peace since. I never had anything such as this in my youth, only saw others with their sweethearts, and I understand their nervous joy now._

_I am joyful, because I have missed your company, and I am nervous because I have missed your company._

_I am joyful because you are well and I am well and we brought men home to live the rest of their lives. And I am nervous because what we are skirting around is not a thing I should be able to have, nor you should even deign to_ _consider_ _._

_Maybe I studied my classics too well as a youth - you should not laugh at the implication behind that, for it may be true - but I know Love is a great and terrible thing, and so it does great and terrible things to me._

_You are coming tomorrow, and I am sat on the floor rambling. You will think me absurd, yet you will understand. Or rather the man I knew in the Arctic will understand, and I hope it is he I meet on the platform. And I hope I shall be who you imagine to meet, in every way, and that I will not disappoint (there is a part of me you do not know, that I cannot put into words, that I fear will disappoint or confuse you, and I do not know what to do about it)._

_I have lived long enough to satisfy glory, as a wiser man than I once said. I did not think I would live to satisfy my nature also._

  
  


* ***** *

James knew perfectly well that he was being ridiculous. But in just what manner, he could not say.

He had once walked half a mile in a blizzard to try and shout some sense into Francis, barging into his ship without a by your leave. And now he baulked at the notion of opening his bedroom door, crossing the landing, and knocking on Francis’ own. When the house, all three floors of it, was all but empty!

Either the notion itself was foolish, or his hesitance, or both!

“Why the caution now, old boy?” James murmured to himself, then blushed as his memory provided the answer.

Will had been beginning to ail when Francis arrived on an overcast February afternoon. Too long in London never agreed with him, the smog and the cold nor-easterly winds taking a toll on his health, while the crowds and the mercantile churning of the city made his spirits so very low. His mood did lighten over the week where all six of them were resident in the large Regent’s Park house; his spirits lifted by finding a new, untapped source of conversation about renaissance art in Francis, who took the fluctuations in Will’s temperament in his stride.

"I know what it's like," Francis said one evening when they were sitting alone together in the drawing room while Will and Elizabeth put the children to bed, the only sound the crack of the fire and the sluggish ticking of the clocks. “Deep felt emotions are often unruly and leave you at their mercy," he spoke quietly, eyes cast down to the empty space between them on the settee, “both the joyful, and the heavy, unpleasant ones.” 

James pressed his thigh lightly against Francis’ until he had glanced at him. The months with the Ross's had done him good; he looked more rested than James had ever seen him, the jagged edges that he had brought into the Arctic smoothed, a lightness about his eyes that spoke of one who had remembered they were allowed to be happy. 

“There is an ocean metaphor there,” Francis had whispered, “but I hope not to become the old sea captain who can only speak in nauticalia.”

He had smiled only when James had smiled, that same cautious, wondering look on his face that James remembered so clearly from the dark room in Toronto when they had first shared a kiss; leaving James feeling pathetically, wonderfully alive.

James ducked forward to kiss him now, sitting in his brother’s genteel drawing room, and it was clumsy because it was unexpected. James had laughed nervously, his heart feeling as if it were beating to quarters, and let Francis touch his cheek, tilting his head so Francis could kiss him with perfect, loving gentleness.

Things between them remained all very chaste and courtly like that, even for a while after Will and Elizabeth had gone back to Brighton with the children. And then last night, James thought with a glance back at his bed, set in the middle of his respectable room in his brother’s respectable house, he had let Francis bugger him. 

It had been a consummation, of sorts, although James was sure few men would like a bride to be as forward and knowledgeable as he had been. Not that he was a bride, and he should not think of himself as such, despite how he was standing in his nightshirt at his bedroom door, dressing gown clutched to his throat, nervous to go to Francis. 

James had been apprehensive of what Francis might think of him - a man who enjoyed things that were held to be debasing and sordid, despite James rarely finding them to be so - in the cold light of day. But Francis was always steadfast, sometimes to a fault, and would not waver before something as insignificant as the opinion of society or scripture. Or indeed sense, which might be why they had found themselves so well suited. 

Nothing changed, and yet it did. A brush of fingers or the press of a knee would make James smile and cause a delightful pink to bloom on Francis' cheekbones, which occurred seemingly at random whenever they spoke together throughout the day. Francis flushed again when they hesitated on the landing before retiring to their own rooms for the night, the lamp he held catching on all his pale warmth and the brightness of his eyes.

James had wanted to go with him, almost overtaken by a surge of ridiculous romantic notions that amounted to nothing less than swooning in his strong arms. He had not, of course, and as neither of them were sure what the proper form was when your lover was a man, they had parted ways with a stilted goodnight to their own rooms.

Such dithering was absurd behaviour from two seasoned naval captains. But then it was difficult to know how not to be lonely when one was so used to it, or how to reach out and take what you wanted when that had always been beyond you.

James finally decided on what sort of ridiculous he was being, and opened his bedroom door. The moonlight shining through the window that presided over the sweeping staircase made the landing feel cold as James crossed it towards the faint glow coming from beneath Francis’ door. 

He knocked smartly, wincing at how loud the noise was in the silent, empty house, then slipped quickly into the room as if he were on the brink of being caught red handed.

The fire was burning low in the grate, throwing long dramatic shadows over the neat, unfussy room. While the candle on the bedside table lit every soft crease and furrow of the soft counterpane that had been pushed back when Francis had climbed into the bed.

It was odd to see Francis in naught but his nightshirt. Not that James had thought to find him dressed and standing straight backed and broad shouldered in the middle of the room. Nor could he say what he expected. Only that it pleased him greatly to see Francis so comfortable.

“James,” Francis said, both his voice and smile outdoing the candlelight for soft, welcoming warmth; as if he was glad to see James even though they had only just parted ways.

James crossed the room without thinking, grasping the bedpost as he leaned his stomach against it, eyes intent on Francis. “If we are to do this, Francis, then I would do it - be… love one another, is what I am talking about. I would not have only base _intimacy_ be our intimacy. I know there is no precedent for us in any setting outside of ancient poetry, yet we have been through death together, and I do not want to waste time being clumsy.”

Francis could have said something calming, which would have made James feel as if he were being foolish. But Francis only shook his head and said, “you have saved me from the agony of having to make a similar, less eloquent speech.”

James smiled, loosening his grip on the bedpost. “When given sea room you are a fine speaker,” he said as he knelt on the bed. “Or at least fine enough for me.”

“Which is all that matters?” Francis asked, expressive brow raised, and grinned when James shrugged. 

“You said so, not I,” he sniffed, playing at coy as he shuffled up to Francis on his knees, dropping to sit on his heels facing him. “I do not mean that I wish us to be together every moment God allows. We are sailors after all, and independent souls. Only, as I said, propriety has its place, but to tiptoe around for the sake of it is… I would go mad if I had to go back to how I was before... before the Arctic.”

“I know,” Francis nodded, pushing the sheets back until they hit James’ knees. He watched James clamber into the warm bed beside him, ducking out of the way of his elbows when James pulled off his dressing gown and dropped it on the floor. “We shall find our way to do things, I do not doubt it.”

James stretched his legs out under the warm sheets, letting his knee knock against Francis’ as he leant his head back against the headboard, a buoyant bright feeling bubbling up in his chest when he reached out to tap Francis on the thigh. “Find our way, eh?”

“Yes, yes,” Francis muttered. “Good thing I am an explorer.”

James grinned. “I must warn you that happiness does my humour no favours.”

Francis frowned, and James felt his smile begin to fall until Francis picked up his hand. “You were not prone to silliness on _Erebus_.”

“I was at my duty,” James said. “Besides, there is happiness and then there is _being_ happy, I think," he gave Francis' fingers a squeeze, watching surprise pass through his eyes.

"Is that enough, that I make you happy?"

"Enough?" James repeated. "Of course. What could matter more to a soul."

Francis nodded, and dropped his forehead on rest James’ shoulder, James shifting so he could lay his cheek on Francis’ hair. He thought that he was indeed happy, not that he ever thought he had been desperately _unhappy_ , but he felt content. It was true that Francis did not know every part of James, but he had told Francis more than he had ever thought he would dare speak aloud, and James did not think he should push his luck by trying to explain how sometimes when he looked in the mirror what he found did not fit what he felt. He well knew the risks of hoping for too much.

That was a worry for another day, and James pressed a kiss to the top of Francis' head, then his temple. "You better not have fallen asleep.”

“Had I not?” Francis murmured, smile clear in his voice

“You’ll have a terrible crick in your neck,” James smiled against his temple. “Besides, haven’t even given me a kiss goodnight."

Francis laughed, sitting back to affix James with a _faux_ stern look. "You have commandeered both my bed and my hand, and now you make demands of me."

"Poor you,” James murmured, taking a hold of the front of Francis’ nightshirt and tugging just enough to make Francis kiss him. 

* ***** *

In the same bed, a morning later, a chill both in the air and rapidly disappearing from between the blankets, James was still revelling in kisses. He sighed into Francis' mouth, fingers curled around the back of his neck, throwing his arm about Francis to keep his solid weight close. A shudder ran through James and he fell out of the kiss with a sigh, Francis turning his attention to laying kissing, scratchy with morning stubble, to James' throat while he worked James’ prick. 

Their breathing and the rustle of sheets were loud in the room, and James struggled to keep his moans bottled in his throat as he rolled his hips into the rhythm of Francis' hand.

James had awoken this morning to the nip of cold air when Francis had slipped back under the covers. He had reached out to pull Francis against him, so hazy with lingering slumber that he had failed to realise how heavy and hard he had become in his sleep. That his body was being as unruly as a boy’s had been a source of mortification until Francis rested his hand on the bare skin of James’ thigh.

"I hope you do not think I mind," Francis had said, voice rough with sleep, the idle sweep of his thumb making James’ pulse beat insistently. "I should be glad of such a reception, old man that I am."

He had only been partially teasing, a flush rushing up from the skewed collar of his nightshirt that James had been compelled to chase with his lips.

" _Oh,_ " James breathed now, tipping his head back against the pillow. “Tighter, plea -” he swallowed down a sound as Francis squeezed the head of his stand, twisting his wrist before dragging the coarse calluses on his palm down the delicate skin of James’ prick.

James did not think he had ever felt so overcome as he did with Francis. He had wanted others this desperately before now, and their touch might have been more skilled but none were so attentive or gentle. Nor had James ever been so completely open with another as he was with Francis; there was no pretence here, or attempts - for propriety, always propriety - to hide just how much he liked the breadth and the strength of a man either under his hands, or pushing into him. 

It scared James to be made so vulnerable and open. It always would. Especially if he was so affected by something so tame as a frig. But Francis pushed his hair from his face and murmured in his ear, “that’s it, come on now,” and James could do nothing but fling himself over the edge for him.

James lay panting after he had finished spilling over his own stomach, his mind hazy and the bed uncomfortably hot now his desire was passing. He managed to pull Francis into a kiss, his nose pressing into Francis cheek and their teeth almost catching before they got the angle right. 

James swept his hands down Francis’ back and over his sides, hesitating to grab his backside in case that was not welcome, then fitted his palm to Francis’ hip. 

He was on the brink of hardness, James could feel it against his thigh, but Francis demurred when James reached for his prick.

"Later,” Francis said, hand resting on James’ chest, “I'll appreciate it more when I’ve not just woken up.” 

James tutted, which made Francis smile.

James huffed as he levered himself out from the warmth of Francis' sheets to return to his own untouched bed for the last few hours of slumber. He rubbed at the wound on his side, easing the tightness there, before hauling off his soiled nightshirt to wipe himself and Francis' hand - blushing at the thought of what washerwomen must see of people's lives.

He scooped up his dressing gown from the end of the bed and shrugged it on over his skin, tying it tight about his middle. It was cut to be fuller about his legs than most men preferred, the soft silk brushing about his bare calves when James perched on the side of the bed, placing his hand on the pillow under Francis’ head as he bent to kiss him softly, leaning into the hand pressing against his dip of his waist. 

That old feeling, long contained, made itself impossible to ignore when James straightened. Mutinous, it demanded to be present, to see the light of day alongside his parentage and proclivities. Ever gentle, arms always open to soothe, it whispered of the contentment he felt, of how not a single worry of James Fitzjames touched him in lace and linen. That if he allowed it, he might spend the day at peace with himself and in his own skin, rather than hiding himself behind fine waistcoats and trousers. 

Francis was watching him, of course. Those eyes, more blue than the most delicate of robin’s eggs, seeing all in that way captains had, although James could tell that Francis did not quite know just what it was he was seeing. 

He tossed his hair back, and squeezed Francis’ hand as he stood, calling out a reminder that they were dining with the Ross’ tonight as he swept from the room.

* ***** *

####  -1850

Sophia had been unspeakably kind. More kind than James deserved, considering how her perfect, fair femininity alarmed him so. 

(Francis would not promise to stay with James if he did not intend to - he wore his heart too clearly on his sleeve to be anything but a man of his word - yet even noble men married suitable women and kept their lovers. It was what George Barrow had done, after all. Although it was more than he deserved to be thought of in the same moment as a man like Francis.)

Miss Cracroft was like her aunt in that she always took the initiative, Sir John had often spoken of them both in such fond terms. She had cut through all the trouble of admitting truths and reassurances and having to be brave yet again - and the forbidding prospect of Francis lost at sea in the dress makers - by sending James that fine lilac dress. 

It was for Francis’ sake more than his, James was under no illusions as to Miss Cracroft's purpose to see Francis happy, either because of the memory of what had been between them, or a sense of guilt at the end she had almost sent him too. And although it had _hurt_ him to have this acted upon when James had not even found a way to say one word to Francis about it, that Francis had _let_ her know all of this, the benefits outweighed all of that. 

The sense of peaceful lightness, of every stereotype and overused phrase for feeling complete, mattered more, James supposed. As, the shallow part of him proclaimed gleefully, did the way Francis looked at him, the way he kept on looking at him as if James were a marvel, and did not question any of it.

Especially when James wore the neat, terribly sensible, blue striped dress that he had picked out and Francis, in a fit of something that had startled them both, insisted on paying for it. 

“Tight enough?” Francis asked from over James’ shoulder, the long cords of the corset held taught in one hand while the other lay on the boning over James’ hip

James raised his shoulders as he looked at himself in the long mirror set in the door of his wardrobe. He raised his eyes to meet Francis’ gaze, and found him looking over James’ reflection; from his stockinged legs beneath the lace hem of his chemise, to the faintly padded chest of the corset, and up to the delicate capped sleeves that took some of the breadth from his shoulders. 

James raised his brow when Francis finally met his eyes, feeling warmth run up his back when Francis dropped a light kiss to his shoulder.

“Could take it being a little tighter, I suppose,” James mused, thinking of how Francis liked the way feminine _underpinnings_ swelled out and swept in his figure. His inclinations encompassed both men and women, and the appreciation of what was attractive in one would not vanish if he loved the other; and as James was very confident that Francis found him compelling just as he was, he would not begrudge Francis a fondness of his trim waist and soft hips.

“Hmph,” Francis huffed. “And if I do, in three hours you’ll be uncomfortable.”

“Oh will I? Expert are you?”

”Do you want my help or not?” He asked as he leaned back to quickly tie a knot (“ _It’s a bowline,_ ” he had grinned the first time he had helped James dress, giggling when James had tried to elbow him).

“You are rather good with laces,” James conceded.

“I have six older sisters, you get put to work doing all sorts.”

“I have two sisters you know,” James said as he stepped into his padded petticoats. “Well, they were half sisters really,” he shrugged as a puzzled afterthought. James never spoke about his father’s other children, or really thought about them, as it made him feel so very lonely. Which in turn made him feel terrible, as his own family loved him as if he were their own flesh and blood. 

He looked at himself in the mirror, tossing his lock of greying hair from his eyes. “ _I am all the sons of my parent’s house, and all the daughters too.”_

“And more than they deserved,” Francis told him, hand resting on the pile of laces tied at James’ lower back as James craned his head to look at him. “I’ll leave you to it?”

James nodded. “See what delights Daisy has left on the range for us poor defenceless souls to eat this evening?”

“I’ll have you know that I am perfectly proficient with a range and a cooking pot.”

“Heavens above! And a naval captain to boot!”

"London society will never recover,” Francis said, squeezing James’ bare arms as he pecked him on the cheek, the sensation lingering while James watched Francis slip out of the room. 

James shook out the skirt before slipping it on over his head, tying it at his back, then shrugged the bodice on. He buttoned the neat row of cloth covered buttons that ran up to his throat before adjusting the collar and the lace cuffs, making sure the bottom edge of the bodice lined up with the stripes on his skirt. 

He looked at himself in the mirror, hands on his hips, and James Fitzjames - who had been honest with himself while gulling the world, who had tried to be better than any bastard should try to be and damned the consequences, who had tried to fit in this world that had no place for men like him - looked back, and was happy. 

James let out a great sigh, tipped his head back and closed his eyes. 

  
  
  


_You are here with me again, listening with me: the sea_  
_no longer torments me; the self_  
_I wished to be is the self I am._  
-Louise Gluck, Otis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, ladies and gentlemen and jolly jack tars, is the end of the _Let The River Rush In_ series. I wrote the first fic because I wanted to explore Victorian gender and sexuality, especially in a someone like JFJ, so I thought I should end it in the same vein. Another fic in this series might pop up in the future, but for now, she's done.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented, kudos-ed, liked, shared, messaged me, or drawn art ([ thank you Lenka for my life and the blue striped dress ](https://matt-j-freeman.tumblr.com/post/190825581244/xmas-gift-for-pianodoesterror-that-was-on-time-i)) because of this series.
> 
> I'm still into the Terror, stuck fast in the pack, so I'll see you around!
> 
> .


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